Short of military conflict and we need to remember what we are trying to get iran to do. If you are older, you remember things called fallout shelters. We did that training where we trained for the advent of the nuclear war with the soviet union at the time. We dont want to live like that. I ran having a Nuclear Weapon is unacceptable. We are trying to show them the way. Host do sanctions work . As it proven to change their action in the past . Caller it changes it a little bit. I think that is what brought them to the table initially. We have not been able to get them to reverse course completely. I think that is what brought them to the table. We should have increased pressure at that time and let them know how tough it can be. Often times in these autocratic regimes, there are a few people at the top probably a couple hundred to a couple thousand running the operation, so to speak. Sanctions on them in particular make a huge difference. Aborted went from an military strike and the president saying he would renegotiate without preconditions. The president saying some of our allies and countries who have shipping in the gulf of oman need to do more to protect their own interest. How would you assess the Trump Administrations strategy . Host i think it is evolving and one that wants to avoid Armed Conflict and one that is focused on the goal. We would hope other countries would see where we are headed and many countries have a much greater stake than the United States in that part of the world. Ofticularly the free flow the persian gulf of goods and services. I think we would welcome their involvement and i think they have a greater stake that they would want to get involved earlier rather than later. State howwould you much involvement they have so far . Guest they seem to be helpful the United States will handle it and they can keep their hands off and have no consequences. Living in this Global Economy and connected. To wash your hands of these things is not practical or realistic and the other thing to consider is there are other malign actors who do not have the same views as much of the west, which is freedom and Democratic Values. When you talk about russia or china getting involved, there are not going to be things that our nation and freedom loving nations support. Scottwe are talking with perry until the top of the hour. Phone lines as usual. Republicans, 2027488000 2027488001. Democrats, 2027488000. Independents, 2027488002. As folks are calling in, you spent a career in the army before you took this job. Your thoughts on mark esper and his nomination for secretary of defense. Guest we need somebody and i am sure he will go through the process and everything will be put on the table. We are glad he is willing to serve and looking at different cabinet positions and different individuals that have served the administration, i think we need somebody willing to carry out the goals of this president , this administration and follow through with those policies and you have to be honest about it, i have been privileged to serve in uniform, but you understand who the commander is. Sometimes you have a disagreement. If the commander says i appreciate your input, we are doing this, roger, sir, we are moving out. That is how things work in the military and how they need to work because lives are on the line and you cannot have one two or three commanders. Host secretary mattis stepped down because of his disagreement. What did you think . Guest i think it is the appropriate and honorable thing to do. We are americans, so we are freethinkers and have the right to our opinion. When you have the job as the secretary, a great part of your duty is to carry out the views of the administration and the commanderinchief. If you cannot do that or are unwilling to, the honorable thing to do is move on and let somebody else do that. Host do you know secretary esper personally . Guest i do not, but he seems to be interested in the position, so that would lead me to believe he understands the goals of the administration and would be willing to carry them out. The military is important to this country. Every family generally has a connection to some type of military service. We want to get this right. Host a lot of callers interested in chatting with you. Brian out of michigan, independent. Is is wehe thing of it like to have it both ways. I am staying at a station in by rain bahrain. Can you hear me . Guest yes, sir. I can hear you loud and clear. Caller the thing of it is, of course i am with us on this. I am a proud veteran. Guest thank you for your service. Caller no problem. It is the least you can do. A lot of people serve in different capacities. Ouret back to my point, presence and our power, we utilize it. We are not colonists, but we set up races around the world. In this instance we are talking about bahrain. The Army Presence there is a big problem. We are going to take advantage of who we are as americans and try to be nice, but we do it. In the month in the muslim world, they dont appreciate us being there and you understand that. I have walked the streets in bahrain, saudi arabia by myself. I would suggest more politicians do that without an entourage and maybe we would learn a little bit more. With anything up when i served, sir. You could not get near us and i will end on this in particular muchin the port of aden, time. We took as much precautions as if we were in a hurricane. I am always sickened when i see commander leopold on television and he will tell us about security when we have always known aden was a hospital hostile port. Host thanks for telling us about your service. Guest i think what brian is trying to say is america is a country we feel we are the good guys and we are the good guys, but we are in places where some places we are somewhat unwelcome. Maybe by the people or generally by the government or we would not be there at all and we are trying to balance this and we understand if america is not there, someone else will be there and the question is do you want freedom and democratic policies being upheld and uplifted by americas presence or some other country to be present encouraging their viewpoints . There is a cost to this leadership, but somebody has to do it and america is uniquely positioned to do that work. In canton, ohio, good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to ask you a question. Do you know the only country in the world that has used atomic or Nuclear Weapons on another country . Guest certainly i know america has. Caller that would be us. Why doesnt congress put out the document where we went around the world and got permission from all the other countries in the world for us to have nuclear or atomic weapons. Guest i dont know that that document exists. America has been a force for good. We do those things reluctantly, knows overably ken the course of history, there was a calculation made about what the cost would be in lives to the allies and the axis powers and japan in particular at that thatand we made determination that was the necessity to end that devastating and costly in the form of lives and other things. It is unfortunate, but it is the reality of the world we live in and our particular with position with iran is to avoid that circumstance once again. An Unusual Group of countries possibly coming together. United states, israel, and russia. The u. S. And israel are working to convince russia to join them in reining in iran after the theey gathering of security council. John bolton today in jerusalem to discuss middle east security. Your thoughts on what that gathering could bring. Guest it could bring a lot of things and there are things we disagree with in particular with russia, but they have interests in the region as well and they have a very concerted interest in the stability of the region. When it comes to things like supplying iran with weaponry used to attack their neighbors, this is an opportunity to say this isnt helpful for russia either and we can Work Together to make things stable. We are not going to agree about maybe how the outcome comes out, but stability is important to everybody and i think it is great we have a conversation. Ftentimes we disagree oftentimes there are things you agree on and for the things you agree on, those are things you can and should work on. Supplyingidea of weaponry, explain why the white house is looking to supply a billion dollars of weaponry to saudi arabia without congressional approval, something it is supposed to do when we talk about these arms sales. Guest there is a predicate to that, they made the request generally 18 months in advance. This has been languishing for 18 months. Generally these take 30 to 45 days. This has a long tail to it. During that time, we have gotten information that iran is interested in malign activities against the United States. Not only the United States, potentially their neighbors in the region. They have asked for the capability they need to defend themselves. You have to consider this in the broader scope that if they dont get the capability they need to defend themselves from the United States, their friends, they will get it from somewhere else and potentially our adversaries. How does that help the interest of the United States . While the administration has been working with congress diligently. At some point because of actions on the ground, the determination was made that we could not wait any longer to help our friends and allies in this endeavor. Host you are ok with that determination . Guest i think it is appropriate congress has the oversight. I received a classified briefing and based on the opinion i got and the actions of the administration to go through using theegitimately normal process, we could not wait any longer and the actions are justified. Taking yourn phone calls prayed online for democrats, 2027488000. Republicans, 2027488001. Independence, 2027488002. Paul in portland, line for democrats. I would be interested in ofwing if there was any kind diplomatic bargaining chip we can use. Is there anything we need from iran or is there anything they would like from us to solve these kinds of problems in the persian gulf . Guest i think that is a great and prescient question. There really isnt anything they need that they can get from us the they wish to be wish to essentially run the middle east, for lack of a better way to putting it. We would like them to quit attacking their neighbors and american citizens. And iran isiraq particularly and directly responsible for the unfortunate deaths of over 500 Service Members through the use of something devised and made in the and ship to iraq, explosive foreign penetrator. Is there something we would like diplomatic lay that would solve this . Unfortunately, the list is probably fairly short. We would just like them to act like a civilized nation with their neighbors and the region and they would like to dictate what happens in the middle east and the persian gulf and with all their neighbors and their neighbors do not like that either. That is what causes instability. We have a hard time finding Common Ground in that regard. This is the interesting thing, too. Many of their population. Many of the people who reside there want stability and freedom and Democratic Values and a democratic lifestyle where their voices are heard. While we might not have much in common with the government, the leaders of iran, the theocratic leadership of iran, we do have something in common with many of the people in iran and we cannot forget that as well. Host jeff is next in oklahoma. Caller good morning and thank you for taking my call. Tensions with iran are getting high and to a critical point and we are doing nothing but making it worse. Screwed upause trump his foreign policies, struggling to clean this mess up is what he has done. Creating jcpoa by saying he wanted to solve the problem of diplomacy, but iran will never trust him again. Up someday andke see ourselves in the middle of a huge and fruitless and fullfledged war with iran. Why did the Trump Administration not show any response to khashoggis murder . They want to increase tensions with iran. What kind of logic is that . Host that is jeff in oklahoma on the day the guardian has this headline, mike pompeo did not raise Jamal Khashoggis murder in his meeting with the saudi king this week according to their sources from that conversation. Guest i know it is a particular point of contention, but i think it has been raised on numerous occasions with the saudis and with turkey. One of the problems is they are not going to provide some of the information that the American People want and we are we have limitations to getting that information. They are not going to let us investigate and forensically deal with the embassy where the crime occurred and so on and so forth. There are bigger issues here as well and unfortunately, while you are having these very increased and concerning tensions with iran, other things move down the list of priorities and i am not sure to a certain extent what iran has to do with khashoggis murder. It is unfortunate to be sure. Host the tweet from the secretary of state showing his meeting yesterday with the king of saudi arabia saying it was productive. Freedom of navigation is paramount. The secretarys twitter feed from 24 hours ago. Mike is a republican, good morning. Caller i want to make a point about school and bernie trying to take over school and guaranteeing schools. There are people i knew going through college that may be in their junior year, they want to go to europe and take their school money and use it to go to europe, not for school and they end up in debt and wonder why and we are supposed to pay them back . Another thing people use is i had friends that wanted to be an entertainer. To be an entertainer, you have to have talent and you have to look at. The person i knew, she could not sing good. She did not have the personality. She did not have the traits. Her parents should have pointed that out to her, yet they spent 60,000. Host we are losing you a little bit. Of thejohn, the host show, certainly looks good. Mike, i would say that. We all want the most education we can get for the people the citizens of our country, for sure. I think we have to look at the cost of this and how it will be paid for. In particular, as a person who struggled myself to pay for my schooling and my higher education, why has the cost risen so much and what has caused that . I think that has to be part of the equation, not just we will have the taxpayers pay for it, but what is the cost and what is reasonable . In this particular instance, there is one entity that does not seem to have a lot of skin in the game and that is often time the incident oftentimes the institution of higher learning. On some occasions, it is. Maybe they would be interested in cosigning for the loan the students are getting for the education and if they have some skin in the game and it is like mike said, if you pick the curriculum that may be is not going to have the return on investment, maybe you would not do that if you knew you were not going to be able to host the colleges would not offer those . Guest or they might be selected about selective about who gets it, if it is not in the capacity, so to speak, of the college, they might think better about having that presented . Host a piece of legislation perhaps . Guest no. We are looking at the Reasons College have become more expensive and trying to find ways to have the free market determined a little better and transparency is important. The college i am proud to have gone to, it was when i was in the state legislature, the tuition rate was going up about double the rate of inflation. I think it is a reasonable question to ask why is that . Michigan, a republican. Good morning. Happy good morning and 40 years. Host thanks. Caller no problem. Congressman, the whole thought 1. 5ss behind shipping billion worth of gold, what are we really getting out of that . Tion aftere an erup giving all that money . Why isnt anyone being held accountable for that . Guest that is a bone of contention for a lot of folks and a lot of folks say we did not get money for anything for the money we sent to iran. I think it was a laudable goal to reign in Irans Nuclear capabilities and ambitions. The only thing we did was really delay the time they were going to have Nuclear Weapons. Nobody builds a heavy water reactor for the purposes of generating energy, certainly in that part of the world where fossil fuels are abundant. Seeking particularly Nuclear Weapons capability and delaying it is of little solace and provides little solace. We spent all that money and did not really move the ball that much further. That is why we are in the posture we are now. Host here is a chart from bloomberg looking at uranium stockpile trajectories. These are expectations for when meet limits from the original jcpoa. If they continue to move at the rate they have been moving at june in june, they would have enough material for a weapon, december or the end of november, projections of what might happen. Guest those capabilities existed then and they exist now. All we really did functionally was delay, delay what you are showing on the screen and that is the concern. We dont want any Nuclear Weapons, not now and not in a couple years. All we did was say we are not going to have them now. We will spend all this money and hamstring the west and provide the funding to continue malign activities, the leading sponsor of terrorism worldwide and in those few years, you will have Nuclear Weapons capabilities. On whate jcpoa limits was allowed, that is the blackline of how it would escalate over time. You can see a much flatter line. Guest again, the blue line, which is where they are projecting, was going to happen anyhow. The question is when, not if. The question is when. If you are happy with Nuclear Armed iran in five years, i guess we should have stayed with the jcpoa. If you think somebody like iran should not have a Nuclear Weapon because they cannot be trusted with that power and capability, then somethin