Episode Topic: Mike’s 500-Mile Buffer Zone Idea for the Strait of Hormuz + Thought Experiment on Mind-Reading

[00:00]
Mac: Hey folks, welcome back to the Mac and Mike show. Mike posted something on Facebook that I read and I thought was incredibly intelligent. That doesn’t happen very often when I’m talking about Mike. So I thought maybe we would talk about that just a little bit.

As you all know, Mike is an Air Force veteran, and he posted something about how to handle the current circumstances that we have in the Strait of Hormuz. I read over it and as I read it, I said, “You know what? Mike’s got a really good idea here.” Do you want to explain it for the folks?

[00:36]
Mike: Well, yeah. It might sound like a knee-jerk reaction, but I said, “What we need is a 500-mile buffer zone between the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran,” which is about 680 miles inland from there.

Back during the first Gulf War, we created these north and south no-fly zones — 220 miles in the south and 99 miles in the north. We didn’t need that much room because we were only dealing with Scud missiles and we were basically trying to keep their helicopters — they didn’t have any jets left — out of the area and able to attack.

But with the incoming drones and missiles, we need enough time to intercept with whatever technology we’re going to use. Because if we start putting troops on Qeshm Island or wherever, the first thing that’s going to come under attack is our soldiers, and we don’t want that.

We need that time for intercept. You want to evacuate the civilians, which is going to be very difficult because most coastal areas in any country are highly populated. And then we just make it so that anything that moves within that 500-mile radius of the Strait is a no-go zone. You just kill anything that moves that looks suspicious.

It wouldn’t take too long, I don’t think, before the Iranians gave up at that point because you’re going to cause a lot of problems moving that many people. They’ve already got terrible problems with their infrastructure delivering food to the people. The goal is not to hurt the people, so you can’t create refugees for a long period of time. But I think within a short period of time, that would be a potential solution.

[02:32]
Mac: The whole idea behind what you’re proposing is that even though we had a memorandum of understanding — and one of the first points of that MOU was the Strait of Hormuz would be free-flowing for all traffic — in exchange, the United States was going to remove some of our blockade of their ports. We were also going to allow them access to some of their frozen assets and allow ships to go to their ports.

But the first thing they did is violate that memorandum of understanding by attacking at least three different cargo ships from various nations trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz. So what your suggestion would do is eliminate all the weapons close enough that they could launch without us being able to react and take them out of the sky.

Mike: Yeah, it’s just that simple.

Mac: In practicality, I don’t know…

Mike: I wasn’t a planner. I did some planning like ingress and egress routes for fighter pilots and others who might get shot down. But at that time we were dealing with Afghanistan, which was basically a barren wasteland anyway. So it wasn’t like you had to move a lot of people out of the way. This is a little different.

Obviously, you would tell people, “Move back.” You do that by radio, leaflet drops, or whatever technology you have at the time. It wouldn’t take long for people to get the idea. And you give them time to pack up their belongings. You have to remember there’s sick people, there’s elderly people. And the goal — everybody keeps busting on Trump for this — but the goal is he doesn’t want to hurt the civilian populace there.

Mac: Exactly. A lot of innocent people.

Mike: And that’s the way it is in most of our conflicts. Not every Afghan was a bad person. Not every Iraqi was a bad person. We’re just regular people trying to go about our daily business.

[04:44]
Mac: And that explains his reluctance to take out the dual-purpose infrastructure. Because ultimately, although it does put a significant drag on the enemy’s potential for attack, it also dramatically impacts the civilian population. And then you have to think about the rebuild process.

The other problem is how do you feed them and keep them comfortable within a human being’s typical tolerance for the weather? So I understand Trump’s reluctance. He does not want to hurt the civilian population, but he does want to get to a deal. And what is he demanding? No nuclear program.

And interesting to me, Trump said the other day — we came out with this memorandum of understanding. The first point is that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. He said as soon as they signed the deal, they went out and talked to the press and said, “We never talked about that.” So what he said was, “These people are crazy. They’re not dealing from a position of honesty.” (He said it in a much more vulgar, direct way.) Basically, you can’t trust them. What do you do with an enemy that you cannot trust?

[06:28]
Mike: Yeah, well that’s been the problem since the beginning. I don’t think Trump is naïve enough to think that there was ever a deal that you could strike with them that would hold up over time. I think he knew they were just going to do this, and he’s trying to show the world, “Look, I’m trying to be the peaceful guy here. I’m trying to save people. I’m not trying to be overly aggressive.” Nobody wanted them to have a nuke — not even the Europeans, not the Gulf neighbors. It would have started a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, which is the last thing we want.

Mac: Not only would it have caused a nuclear arms race, Mike, but as he said the other day, if they had a nuclear weapon, they would in fact use it. And it’s very hard not to believe that very striking statement.

Mike: Right. That’s hard for Americans to understand who haven’t studied the mindset of the mullahs and the IRGC types that are fanatics. In America, the only thing we came close to was Jim Jones… and the Branch Davidians. But the difference there is I don’t think the Branch Davidians wanted to end their lives. That was a different kind of problem.

Imagine if any one of the cults we had that’s small in America grew to possibly 20% of the population. Their population is around 91 million, so you’re talking about just under 20 million people that are essentially brainwashed cultists — and they die for it too. Seventy million people are very innocent.

[08:30]
Mac: So that’s what Trump’s balancing. But the whole idea that you proposed was here’s a no-fly zone. This gives us a buffer so that if Iran launches some sort of airborne attack, we will have enough advanced notice to take it down before it does any damage to ourselves, our allies, or the ships just trying to do commerce through the Strait of Hormuz.

Mike: Yeah, it’s a pretty simple idea. It’s one that we’ve executed before. It’s not like I came up with this on my own. I was just thinking about the history. You and I both participated in the first Gulf War.

[09:08]
Mac: Yes, sir.
(Discussion continues on Saddam Hussein, strongmen, the Shah of Iran, etc.)

Mac: So folks, what do you think of Mike’s idea — a 500-mile buffer zone eliminating all the weapons close to the Strait of Hormuz? I think it’ll work, Mike. We’d have to try it and see. Let’s see what the president and his negotiating team come up with. We can get that off to Dan Meuser… and get it to Wolf and Jared Kushner.

(Transition to second topic)

Mac: We had other subjects we wanted to talk about. Let’s talk about another idea… Mike, you and I disagree on this. You put forth the concept that wouldn’t the world be a great place — a much better place — if we all understood one another’s thoughts without any kind of interpretation issues or getting someone’s motivation incorrect. Do you want to explain that?

[12:26]
Mike: Yeah, it’s called a thought experiment…
(Full discussion on mind-reading scenarios, Tower of Babel, Garden of Eden, sin, surprises, white lies, Jeffrey Toobin Zoom incident, frustration vs. other emotions, Minority Report, Neurolink privacy controls, etc.)

Mac: …I don’t believe we could ever get to the point as human beings where we would have that ability to read each other’s minds… I think there would be a whole lot more disagreement, hatred, misunderstanding, and ugliness than exists today.

Mike: Before we go, I’ll throw one last thing at the folks to consider. Imagine a world in the future where Neuralink — through something like Elon Musk — your thoughts are exposed to the world, but you have a controller over it, kind of like browser privacy settings. You keep some things private like the secret of a surprise party, but you allow people to understand when you’re starting to become frustrated so it doesn’t escalate into anger. It’s just a thought experiment for people to consider.

Mac: That’s a good thought. Maybe we’ll expound on that some other time. Not enough time today. I guess we’re about 40 minutes into it.

Mike: Should we sum it up and wrap it up?

Mac: Wrap it up. All right. Back at you, Mike.

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