Delegate Tom Garrett Is In The Middle East

It's Sophia with an F, Franklin with the Y, and if you're looking for some bubble gum dumb, dumb podcast, then you are in the wrong place, baby. Whether I'm reminiscing on the trials and tribulations of working in the corporate world to recapping today's latest reality TV show, you're going to want to pull up a chair and stick around. It's a good time and always 100% unfiltered. Follow and listen to Sophia with an F wherever you get your podcast. Little Bob here. This summer shop the latest small space solutions at Bob's discount furniture. From retro chic bedroom sets to stylish space conscious bobopedic sofas, it's all at Bob's where America shops for furniture. News Radio WRVA Wild Thing, not Rick Vaughn, but instead, Delegate Tom Garrett, our weekly visit with the member of the House of Delegates. Delegate Garrett, how are you today, my friend? I'm well. How are you, Gary? I am good. I am good. It's always a little different to sit in Rich's chair, which is not very comfortable, by the way. And, you know, and play a little radio. So it's all good. Heavy lies the crown. So, yeah, it's hard to be Herrera. Nobody can do it. You know, I've got Monday through Friday. I'll play Gary Hess's greatest hits, and then I'll go back to the news booth next Monday. So it's all good. Well, you know, you're doing all right. Let's go. What are we got? Okay, let's talk. You're spending some time over in the Middle East, and, you know, so much time you've spent in the state legislature, you know, it's easy to forget that you served our country. And thank you for that, by the way. Just talk about some of the things you're doing and some of the things you're seeing while over there. So, yeah, I am blessed to, they have a primetime lineup on Al Jazeera in Arabic, and they wanted an American to come on and speak against the Iranians who they've had on, literally from Tehran. And so the last week or so I've been sitting on a panel sort of debating the Iran conflict, just for background. Yeah, served in Congress, obviously, in the Foreign Affairs Committee, lead voice in the JCPLA, which I wink, wink, nicknamed the JCPOS. It was just so bad. And so I got some expertise in that area. It did targeting and fires planning in the military and have spent a bunch of time in places like Iraq and Syria and Sudan under Omar al-Andy Beshear. and even in Ukraine. So what people might not realize is aside from being a trial attorney and a member of the House of Delegates, I've done some other stuff. So it's fascinating the Iranian perspective here. Sort of the line that I was discussing last night was Iran's inability to take yes for an answer. If you go back through the MOU and look specifically at Plank 5, it calls on Iran to sort of

managed the straight alongside Oman and allow free traffic for 60 days while negotiations continue. What precipitated this most recent round of strikes by the U.S. was Iranian unprovoked attacks on not one, not two, but three commercial tankers. Now, just to get a grasp on this, Iran has hit assets. From, you know, obviously people go, this is Iran in the United States, they've had assets from Malta, from Honduras, from the UAE, from Qatar, from Panama. I could keep, though, Japan and Korea have had assets implicated here. And so they're shooting at commercial shipping in the strait. And not only that, your listeners probably know the strait is 30 kilometers wide as narrow point, about 21 miles. So theoretically, you'd split that between Iran and Oman. Every single strike that Iran has made on commercial shipping has been in not Iranian waters, but in the South Passage, Omani waters. Now, why do I say they couldn't take yes for an answer? They said they wanted sanctions relief. Trump gave them that and was criticized from the right. They said that they wanted a lifting or unfreezing of assets. Trump was in the process of giving them that and was criticized from the right.

Everything they wanted he gave them, and they still started shooting its ships at that point. And the thing that the Iranians with whom I'm debating each night don't seem to understand is while the midterms are looming, and certainly there could be a political impact on President Trump. This guy's not cut from the same cloth as most people. He's been betrayed as he sees it. He's determined that they won't negotiate in good faith. And so he's gradually eroding their capability to impact their neighbors and the straight and all the while inviting them back to the negotiating table, but this time sort of with the caveat that they probably ought to keep their word. It's fascinating. How much, how interesting a perspective is it to try to represent the American side, the, you know, of this argument while seeing the perspective that the Iran's, that Iran is bringing on Al Jazeera and how, you know, kind of flying in the face of, of that. So a point that I've tried to make repeatedly is Iran has four things that it exploits. Number one is a willingness. to torment, oppress, and murder their own people. Amnesty International estimates that while under 1% of the world population, Iran is responsible for over 80% of the world's executions. Depending upon the source, the regime numbers are about 3,000. Iranian dissidents at the LIAC are looking at 50,000. This is just how many Iranian citizens have been killed by their own government this year. Crimson Winter in January and February before hostilities kicked off was probably tens of thousands. So they have the ability to torment their own population. They have the ability to torment their neighbors. Literally, Gary, the list of Arab countries Iran hasn't struck. this year is shorter than the list of Arab countries that it has struck. The other thing that they have is an incredible depthness and willingness to tell lies. It's kind of like when somebody runs for office saying affordability and then increases your power bill. And the fourth thing that they have is the Strait of Formutes, right? Well, how did this become about the Straits? We thought it was about Iranian nuclear aspirations. Well, it's still about Iranian nuclear aspirations, but the strait is their high card. They've chosen to play it. So how interesting is it to debate against these gentlemen from Iran? I mean, first of all, when we make a salient point, they say Israel, right? When I point out that they've been an aggressor against Arab nations, they say Zionist, right? So the dog whistle game is sort of mastered by these guys. And the art of the hyperbolic thread is something that President Trump's really good at, but so are they, right? So you think of, you know, and obviously Iraq and Iran are different, but you think of the mother of all battles, and that's sort of hyperbole. So that's sort of fascinating in real time, and I try to be respectful and not laugh right in their faces on the air. So that's sometimes challenging. I'll tell you, one of my favorite moments was about three or four nights ago.

One of the Iranian gentlemen says, President Trump's a liar. He says the Iranian Navy is destroyed. And obviously, this is all coming through an interpreter. And I said, well, you know, if you can find the Iranian Navy, why don't you tell them to stop hiding behind their mother's skirt, understanding cultural nuance, et cetera. But it's interesting. So, yeah, you just, you know what they're going to say before they say it. Yeah, that part's very predictable. And, of course, the strikes, I mean, is America being portrayed as the evil empire because of all these strikes after, you know, basically Iran completely ignored the terms of the season. History that doesn't suck is a legit, heart-hitting American history podcast told through entertaining stories. Join me, Professor Greg Jackson for History That Doesn't Suck, an Odyssey podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sparer. Right. And they said that we violated Article 5. Literally, they say, no, we didn't violate Article 5. You violated Article 5. It's like the Princess Pride. I do not think that means what you think that it means. But I'll tell you what, the good news is this. If Israel stays relatively neutral at this point, the sympathy of the Gulf Arab states is actually, I think, leaning towards the U.S. and significantly so. Kuwait, Jim Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, they're all taking it on the chin. The Iranians have killed probably 20 sailors from places like India and the Philippines. The Iranians have killed probably 20 civilians and strikes on northern Iraq. The Iranians have killed 11 or 12 civilians and strikes on Kuwait at the civilian airport. You know, on a tug owned by UAE, on a Qatari freighter. So I think we're in an interesting spot. The other thing that you shouldn't lose in all of this is Trump's masterfully working the diplomacy side of this. It's not a coincidence that the Iraqi prime minister and the Lebanese leadership are in the U.S. now because Iran has impacted policy for 47 years. via proxy, right? Whether it's the Hashti Shia militias in Iraq, whether it's the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria or Islamah, Hamas, the Houthis, they use proxies and they even admitted it in this latest round of negotiations by saying, well, we need to include Lebanon in the peace talks. And these proxies have been essentially sowing blood across the soil of the region and the world. Iran's the only state actor to have ever taken the lives of innocence on every single continent except Antarctica. And I'm sure they'd get around to it if they could. And then, you know, for the last 47 years, they're upset that they're U.S. bases in the region. My response was, you know, for 47 years, your neighbors built friendships and you built missiles.

And then the debate and switch. We get 200 and some odd pages of marijuana legislation in the budget, literally over 1,000 references to marijuana or cannabis in the budget. After none of this was able to be passed in debate before 140 members of the General Assembly, and Abigail Spanberger was AWOL. Meanwhile, we increased the size of the governor's staff in this budget by 20%. I couldn't walk around the corner without bumping into a Yon employee. last year and no one could find any Abigail Spanberger people to weigh in on these things. And it was Louise Lucas, again, who made this point. Like, where were they? Why are they making these amendments now? They didn't talk to us during the legislative process. And so it's just, it's a clown show and the voters you're going to suffer. And I'm not even touching on stuff like the Second Amendment and their surveillance state. But, you know, our job by... tasking from our creators to do the best we can. It's to fight not to win and to be faithful and loyal to that, which we believe is good and true and right. And I feel good about that. And so, yeah, but Virginia, I think people need to wake up and move away from the dogma and the jingoism and dig down deeper into these issues. There's no affordability under this administration, only an underlying concept that they know better to do with your money, the fruits of your labor than you do. Yep, well said. We could go on all day, but we're out of time. Hey, keep fighting the fight and safe travels wherever you're heading over there and when you head home, and it's always good talking to you. We'll be back any day now. Okay, gotcha. God bless you, God bless you. That's Delegate Tom Garrett for our weekly visit. Great stuff from him, and we'll step aside. Quick break, News Radio, WRV. The podcast Campus Files is back with more stories of scandal, crime, and intrigue on college campuses. Campus Files, available now wherever you get your podcasts.