Day 12 – Is the US-Iran War Really “Very Complete”?

Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Guest: Leo Hohmann

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 3/11/26. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Sam Rohrer:

Hello and welcome to this Wednesday edition of Stand in the Gap today. Now, as I mentioned on my Monday program, it was my goal that day, that today, this Wednesday program would focus on to what extent we could anyways, what’s happening in the Middle East and specifically with the United States and Israel and Iran in conflict war actually that is unfolding. Today, we’re entering the day number 12 of that war. And frankly, I know your challenge is the same as mine, but what is understood about that war and its actual status remains, as I had said earlier, it’s a mystery. It’s a mystery in many ways because the narratives that we hear in the press, the controlled press, just as controlled as it’s always been, is strategically crafted. They’re called narratives. Narratives as to the war. Narratives as to the objectives, to what constitutes success or failure.

And it’s all intentionally done that way to make it hard for people to objectively measure and to know at any one point in time what’s really going on.

The greatly broadening consequences and impacts globally to this 12 day war going on for however long it will go on, are being carefully downplayed and understated on one hand. Gains and successes are greatly overstated in the others. But nonetheless, all of them are strategically crafted. And that’s just the nature of where we are and that’s the nature of government. That’s the nature of people who control media. That’s the nature of it. And I’m going to put in here in a time when biblical truth has been thrown out as we know it has. Well, it makes then things even more difficult and we have to be very much aware. So this shaping of narratives, however, is not unique. It’s not unique to the White House, to the Pentagon, or members of Congress here in the United States. It’s the nature of communication today, whether it comes from Iran or India or China or Russia or Israel or here in the United States.

There’s no exception. And we frankly live in a day where deception, pragmatism, literally deception, rules the day, not biblical truth, not integrity. And it’s not honesty that rules today as most people have come to know it, or certainly as God defines it to be. So that makes the analysis of headline news increasingly challenging for all of those who fear God. That’s a distinct category. You know that. We’ve talked much about that. And it’s why I say on this program a lot that only the word of God is trustworthy in all things. And it’s why those who fear God must every day. We must every day pray for wisdom and discernment because we simply need it. And just as Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 24 about the latter years, the very days in which we’re living now, deception will increase. He said, “But be careful you’re not deceived because deception will be increasingly at an all time high.” So that being said, I’m glad to have with me today again, Leo Hohmann, author, researcher, and independent investigative journalist and would say one of the most prolific investigative journalists that I’ve come to know and someone who possesses the knowledge of the truth and has worked in this area for a long time.

He also has a healthy skepticism of all media and government and it’s the exact mindset that all of us as God-fearing people should also possess. Remember the Bereans in the Bible? They heard new things in their day and they got together afterwards and they gathered themselves together to compare what they had heard against what the word of God said. That’s what the Bereans did and they were commended for it. That’s really what we need to do. Now, the title I’ve chosen to frame today’s conversation is simply this. Day 12 is the US Iran war really very complete. Now that very complete end quote I put in there because that is a statement that our president has recently made. Now with that, I welcome to the program, Leo Hummett. Leo, thanks for being back with me.

Leo Hohmann:

Hello, Sam. Good to be back.

Sam Rohrer:

I’ve given a little bit longer introduction there than I really wanted to, but I want to go right into this just for sake of time. Leo, again, comment on anything that I said, but I think when it comes to stated objectives in this war, I’ve seen a list, I think of nine the president had laid out. Others have come from the Pentagon and others, so forth and so long. But that being the case, the president has stated in numerous settings that the war, he said, “I can go along. I can go long and take over the whole thing, take over Iran,” meaning long time or I can end it in two or three days. So it goes from long to short, but from your research, what are the objectives of this war as you have seen them and are they measurable and are they achievable?

Leo Hohmann:

Well, you’ve got stated goals, which you said there are at least eight or nine that have been put forth. And you’ve got, I think, unstated goals, which are probably the real goals. At least I would hope so because none of the stated goals make any sense and nor are any of them being achieved, at least so far in the 12th day of the war. We’ve been told that it was about stopping their nuclear weapons program. Well, President Trump said last June, after the first attack in Iran, that he’d obliterated that nuclear program. So I don’t understand why now he needs to go back in that. We’ve been told that their ballistic missile program is also a problem. Well, they’ve had a ballistic missile program for 25 years. They’ve never used it offensively to do a first strike against any country, any country, let alone Israel.

Yes, they’ve pummeled Israel with their ballistic missiles after being attacked.

We’ve been told it’s about the oppressed people in Iran. Well, we have oppressed people all over the world in countless countries, including some of our allies, like Saudi Arabia and places like that that cruelly, much more so even than Iran, put their boot of oppression on especially Christians. There’s a million Christians in Iran. There’s almost none in Saudi Arabia. There’s a reason for that, but Saudi Arabia is our friend and Iran is our enemy. Think about that people. And so yeah, I mean, you look at what we have accomplished so far. We’ve destabilized the entire Middle East. We’ve given reason, even for our Gulf allies, people like Kuwait, people like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, to now question our goals and motives. We say we want peace in the region, but is that really true? Could they be next? They’re all asking these questions. We’ve destroyed a country, and if it goes on much further, we may destroy a 5,000 year civilization of the Persian people, many of which, as I said, there’s a million Christians there.

We’ve degraded their ballistic missile arsenal, but that can be rebuilt on the fly. We’ve assassinated their leader, but the regime is still in place. Now his son is in charge and he’s more hard line than his father.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay. And with that, Leo, just hold that. So ladies and gentlemen, I think through the program, we’re going to ask questions. I’ve done a lot of research myself. I have questions. I have some conclusions. I am watching as we all are watching. When I come back, we’re going to talk about objectives, realize, have anything of the objectives. Well, if you’re just joining us today, we’re taking a bit of a look and analysis of what’s going on in the Middle East. As we all know, it’s taking place there. Conflict, war between United States and Iran, primarily Israel, the three together, but it is broadening, significantly broadening, bringing in other Middle East nations. Russia, we know, has made public. They have been providing Iran with targeting information for their missiles. China and Russia having both made finalized strengthened treaties with Iran in the last month or so, in the last days, China giving warning to the United States not to cross the line with them because they’re still taking their oil, most of their oil they’ve been buying from Iran and thus far, Chinese tankers have been leaving that area safely.

So the ripples of this engagement is going much more broad. And that’s really the reason I’m wanting to take a look at it today and to say what we know. There’s a whole lot that is not known. But again, as we talked about in the last segment, my special guest today, Leo Hohmann, had done quite a bit of writing on this and being an independent researcher, investigative journalist has a perspective that is, I would say, flavored by the length of time he has spent in the field of journalism and being independent. And so we’re just going after a couple things here today from that perspective. So I just want to say that upfront again. Now, the title is this, Day 12, which today is the 12th day of this war. And the question is the US Iran war really “very complete”. And I put that phrase in there, “very complete” because those are words that the president has recently used.

I’m going to say in a way that appears to be in the team looking for a way to get out of this conflict because it’s already gone longer than what I would say was expected. Now that being the case, in life, whether it’s the setting of a military campaign or an economic policy strategy or just in business, a marketing campaign of some type, one of the most essential first steps before a big action is taken or something is launched or money expended, or in the case of government, military lives are endangered, is the planning. You got to plan for it. If you don’t plan for it, then you’re going to reap consequences as a result of it. But not only how do we do the launch, but how will we know if and when we’ve been successful? For instance, do we have the money and the means to carry the launch through to its conclusion?

Finally, do we actually have written and agreed to specific goals by all of those a part of it? In a military perspective, government perspective, it would be Congress because they are to be involved in approving war. The administrative branch, they carry it out. The military is part of the executive, but it’s actually different then. Different strategies, different thinking than political people in the administrative side. So you know what I’m saying? So all of this needs to be together, but do we actually have the written and agreed to specific goals and objectives? That’s very, very important. Based on much analysis, both, I’m going to say outside in my own evaluation, it appears that war does not have precise objectives by which definition, and here’s what it means. Objectives mean this, specific measurable tasks to be achieved. That’s objectives. Goals, by definition, means broader strategic outcome. So one’s more near term, one’s more far term.

But by all of my measurements anyways, the administration seems, and it’s not just my opinion, by others looking at it, have seemed to conflate these two terms and have continued to change them based on political measurements. For instance, short term objectives for this war have included such things as we’ve all heard it, to destroy Iran’s missiles, to sink their ships, to hit nuclear sites and so forth. Those are tactical. They tend to be immediate. Either it’s done or it’s not done. Yet long term goals include, these have been stated, what I’m stating here, these are some that have been stated. One, prevent a nuclear Iran. Well, that’s been something that’s going on for scores of years, right? That’s one. That’s a long term. Another one, push back Iranian influence. All right. That’s actually a long term thing too. And then another one is possibly shape Iran’s future with our president even saying he wanted to have a role in choosing Iran’s next leaders.

So those are clearly longer term, harder to measure. Now, hence the goals and the strategies have changed and they continue to change, sometimes being the same, sometimes being different. So that is a part of the challenge we all have before us. Leo, if you were to look at this war now in its 12th day, what could an objective person actually identify as goals or strategies at this point I’ve differentiated between goals or strategies being accomplished and be objective on this as best you can.

Leo Hohmann:

I mean, we could probably do a whole program on this one question, but let’s just look at, I think is one of the real objectives was a regime change. We miscalculated, when I say we, I’m talking about the US government, the White House and that whole apparatus of the national security state miscalculated when it thought that it could go in, assassinate the Supreme leader of Iran and that the whole house of cards would then fall. The Republican guard would be, the security force would be degraded and demoralized immediately. They would just raise up their hands and say, “Yes, we’re all for a new regime. Bring it on America. We want freedom. We want to be free of this Islamic Republic.” Well, it doesn’t work that way. Okay. What happened? We assassinated Ali Kameni, the Ayatollah who’s been there for quite some time. Now his son has taken over and he is the new Supreme leader.

And he now is, as I said earlier, more hard line than his father to begin with, but he also has every motivation in the world now to get back at us. We killed his father, we killed his wife, we killed his four year old daughter all in the same attack. Now, what would happen here if we had an unpopular president with an unpopular government, let’s say just for the sake of argument, it’s Joe Biden, and a foreign power comes in, let’s say it’s China, violates our airspace, violates our sovereignty, assassinates our unpopular president, and then says we have his replacement that must be approved by us, the Chinese, this outside foreign power. I think that would unify the United States of America against that foreign power like they have never been unified before. And that’s exactly what’s going on right now in Iran. People who were against the Islamic Republic regime are now out in the streets protesting and in favor of the regime, or at least against the people coming in to tell them who the new regime should be.

Iran has shut down the strait of Hormuz. They said they were going to do that before, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise, leading to a complete stoppage of the global oil flow. 20% of the world’s oil flows through that channel, and this has the potential if this war goes on for another couple, two, three weeks, to wreck economies worldwide. So we’ve already failed on the regime change. Now we’re going to see a big failure on the economic scale with economic wreckage that is going to be felt by every American with higher fuel prices, higher food prices, the whole ripple effect of fuel and diesel prices going through the roof. And we haven’t even mentioned what if China, Russia, or North Korea gets involved in the side of Iran. There’s rumblings going on.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay. I want you to hold that. Let’s save that for the next segment for consequences, but anything else that has been identified. For instance, part of the objectives, Leo, was to eliminate the Navy, Iran’s Navy. I don’t know what all was apart I’ve heard from dozen ships to 40, and I don’t know whether they’re big or they’re small. That kind of specificity has not been there, but that as an objective, that objective has been pretty much realized, wouldn’t you say?

Leo Hohmann:

That has, they destroyed, the US destroyed one of Iran’s premier warships that was in India participating in a ceremony. It was completely not in the war zone and was completely unarmed, did not have any munitions on board, and it was blown out of the water. That’s a war crime.

Sam Rohrer:

All right. So bottom line, I’d ask you twice to name objectives fulfilled. You were struggling at it. In reality, when I have gone down through the list, most of them would be, I would say, in process, but none of them fully realize at this point. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s the point. Goals and objectives, they have to be defined and they have to be measurable. Otherwise, you never really know if you get to that point where you’ve accomplished it. We’ll come back and look at consequences. Well, if you’re just joining us, we’re midway in the program today and trying to do a little bit of evaluation of what’s taking place in the Middle East, but I will tell you that it is very, very difficult to do. As I said in the beginning, narratives that we hear in the media from news sources are very, very tightly controlled, not just here, not just here in our country, but really around the world.

Whether you look at what comes from India and the Indian times to Chinese sources, to Russian sources, to Iranian sources, to any of the countries in the Middle East, things are shaped, very, very carefully shaped by the leadership of the countries from which they come, because so much of what we are in, in a struggle in this world starts with communications and propaganda and what is said. And I’ve dealt with this on other programs with expert guests in the past. So that is a part of it. Plus we’re living in a time where deception, according to what the Lord says, is very, very high. So we have to bear that in mind as well. But what is taking place in the Middle East is expanding. In reality, and we’re not even dealing with it too much here right now, just taking more of an American look, but Israel and the United States are together as we know, but Israel has objectives and strategies and goals that are, I would say, pretty carefully called out and they represent the interests of Israel.

And then there are those strategies and goals that are mapped out by American military and the political structure of today here. I’m going to say, as I’ve looked at them, there are certain points of crossover, but they don’t necessarily agree and it makes sense that they wouldn’t agree because two different countries, two different reasons. Israel needs us. Do we need them as much? No, but do we as a nation support Israel? Yes, we generally have for reasons we’ve discussed so many times on here. And then you have Iran, but Iran has linkages to China and Russia. And so it’s flavored, what they do and say is flavored by them. So that is in part what creates the real challenge. And that’s why we really need to pray for wisdom and discernment. I do it every day because it’s just so tough. But in looking at, I want to say unexpected consequences in planning, and I’m going to say in particularly military planning, we can look back over the history of time and see how things have happened.

There are examples where perhaps we in our military have initiated actions such as, I’m going to say Vietnam War as an example, or our move into Afghanistan years ago, and then the exit, as far as the Biden exit, right? Venezuela, most recent one, and then Iran. In each of these, there was planning. Somebody sat down and determined for one reason or another that something needed to be done and they put a plan into place. In some cases, they considered consequences. In some cases, they did not. And ultimately, that’s the difference between a really well-defined plan and one that it’s not, that doesn’t go according to plan. But those scenarios, I’m going to say like today in Iran is totally different. For instance, then reacting to a surprise attack, such as happened years ago in the bombing of Pearl Harbor, as an example, by the Imperial Japanese.

That was something that was done to us. We had to respond and then that took its stretch. Okay. You get the point of what I am saying. So Leo, if you were to identify, again, from your perspective, as you’ve been researching it, I’ll say the most significant unexpected consequence in this current war of Iran so far, what would it be and why?

Leo Hohmann:

So far, none of it has been unexpected to me. Everything that’s happened so far, I’ve written about the strong likelihood, possibility, however I wanted to frame it, of this happening, that the war would not be quick, that the war would not be easy, that the strait of hormones would be closed, that oil prices would skyrocket, that the Iranian regime would hunker down and not be so easily decapitated and removed and replaced with a Western puppet. And so no surprises from my end. Apparently there’s been a lot of surprises to those in Washington who planned these wars, or at least those who fund them, because I do feel like President Trump got the truth from some of his advisors. He chose not to go with that route. He chose to go with the advice he was getting from the Neocon wing of his advisement group and those in Congress, people like Lindsay Graham, bomb, bomb, bomb, just bomb everybody and it’s always just worry about the details later and just bomb them.

That’s the Lindsay Graham theory of foreign policy. And so I would like to go back on something I did at the end of the last segment because I realized I dropped a bombshell about that ship that was sunk that was participating in an exercise in India and I said that it was a war crime. The Geneva Convention state which the United States is a member, a ratified member of, requires belligerence to take all possible measures after each engagement and without delay to search for and collect the ship wrecked individuals. Article 18 of that convention says belligerents take for each engagement, I’m reading from it, “All possible measures to search for and collect the ship wreck wounded and sick without discriminating between their own and enemy personnel. The law does not end there. The Department of Defense law of war manual is categorical. It is prohibited to conduct hostilities on the basis that there shall be no survivors or to threaten the adversary with the denial of quarter. The manual further emphasizes that the rule applies during non-international armed conflict as well. And critically, the US Navy Handbook, according to global security, explicitly lists, offenses against the survivors of ships and aircraft lost at sea, including killing, wounding, or mistreating of the shipwreck as representative war crimes.” Those drowned from that Iranian ship, those sailors in the Indian ocean were not fighting anyone.

They were on an exercise far away from the theater of war over in India, and they were blasted out of the water by a torpedo from an American submarine, one of the most lethal weapons that we have in our arsenal, and then the US left the dead and wounded in the water, offering no quarter and no rescue. Sri Lankan Navy had to go out there and rescue the survivors. I think there were 32 of the 180 or so who survived. So that is what I was talking about when I said the US military arguably committed an international war crime, according to our own definition.

Sam Rohrer:

Well, I was not aware of all of that myself, Leo, but it does underscore the importance of when engagements are made that, again, things are thought out and clearly defined. I know one thing, and again, we’re not going to exhaust, and the purpose here today is not to be exhausted, but in some cases to raise some questions. But from my perspective, I know one of the things that, again, was it unexpected? To me, it should not have been unexpected, but when you eliminate a leader of a country, the eye toll in this case, and 40 of the top leaders, whoever they were, if there were 40, whatever the number was, that if you think that that will cut the head off and make a nation, like Iran that’s been around for 5,000 years, they have about 90 million people, it’s a quite developed country, that it would make them collapse from within and totally surrender.

If anyone thought that, to me, that was more than wishful thinking. They don’t understand the Islamic mindset, because in this case, the Ayatollah was made a martyr. And with Islamic thought, the duty of those who are Muslims and Shia in particular, it causes them to rise up and say, “We will now do everything that we can to get back.” So rather than demoralize, it motivated. And that is one thing I think that as I’m looking at it, Leo, I’m seeing unfold that is contributing to the fact that Iran says, “No, this is going to go a long time. You started it. We’re not going to stop.” And it’s complicating what’s happening with our own military, which I think they’re finding themselves in real difficult times saying, “We need to get out of this because we don’t see a clear end.” And anyways, just some quick thoughts before we wrap up this segment.

Leo Hohmann:

Oh, you’re 100% spot on, Sam. This country’s had ample opportunity. Our government has had ample opportunity to try to understand the Islamic mindset, but I’ve seen no evidence that we’re even moving in the right direction. We seem to have an attitude that if we can just kill enough of them, the Middle East will somehow become more peaceful and will all be more safe and more secure when the actual opposite is the result of these military interventions in Middle Eastern countries. We now have sleeper cells in the United States that could be activated,

Sam Rohrer:

And

Leo Hohmann:

I would not be surprised if they are.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay. And with that, Leo, just hold that last gentle, we’ll come back. And again, just putting some thoughts out there. Next segment we’re going to kind of conclude with what are some likely next impacts? Soon to be finished, longer term, what do we know? What do we don’t know? And we’ll try to put some final thoughts into this. When we go into the final segment, I know that an hour on this topic is far too short. And I had said we would try to cover what we know. There’s an awful lot, I’m going to say to some degree not known than perhaps what is known because of a great deal of media blockage that is coming out of the Middle East on all sides. But at the same time, I think it’s required of all God-fearing people and us as we own the program here try to look at headline news to give a perspective that raises questions where it needs to be raised and then anchors us where we need to be anchored.

And we’ll try to do that here as we wrap this program up today. But one thing I think that is certainly There is not an agreement on any level as to an exit point for this engagement, for this war that is there. The reason for looking at the objectives and the goals at the beginning of the program is the fact that they are changing and they are being conflated, sometimes mixed, strategies mixed with goals. And when that happens, it’s hard to find an actual objective conclusion. But one of the certain things that has happened, and again, whether it was known or not, I don’t know. I think it’s predictable, but the economic impacts that are occurring from what has happened there is becoming very, very significant. One of the things is that when you close or threaten the shipment of oil through that area, through the Straits of Hormuz, through which moves about 20% of the world’s oil, and you threaten the tankers and those who own them, you either threaten them or you sink them, or however that may be, what happens, and this happened about 10 days ago, happened pretty early, those who give shipping insurance for the tankers, and they don’t travel unless there’s insurance on them because of the extraordinary value of the cargo.

But shipping insurance rates went so high that it stopped. They’re basically not covering it during this time of uncertainty. So there is no tanker even if they could move through without fear of attack. They’re not moving because they don’t have insurance. And so the president has offered to have our Navy ships escort tankers and offered some kind of taxpayer supported insurance, but that doesn’t seem to be working. There’s no end to that. And so that’s not actually coming forward. And the Navy, military leaders of our own Navy have said they will not escort tankers through there. So you’ve got to trouble now because countries need the oil, but they’re not getting it. That’s driven up the price of oil, one over $100 a barrel. Now it’s down to about 90 right now as I speak, and it’s up and down in that area. But that is one big one, and that’s having an impact.

If it goes a few more weeks, oil prices may well go to $200. That will be seen all over the world. The White House is looking for an off ramp. I think it’s my own personal senses. I think it’s gone beyond what they intended. It’s not just a two-day affair. March 9th is two days ago down in Florida, the president said this quote, he said, “I expect the war to end very soon.” That would give indication that we’re about it to end. But then he said just short time later to same place, “This is the beginning of building a new country.” Well, that says then forever. So nobody really knows. So duration has run from just a few days, a few more days to four to five weeks and more. Bottom line is nobody really knows, but the longer it’s going, there is a building of not support for what we’re doing, but actually against it with a number of the countries in the Middle East, the Arab countries, Muslim countries, actually moving from us.

So that is something as a trend is worth noting. Leo, just a couple of minutes here, from what you’re seeing, what do you think is the likely next steps that we may see there in that conflict in the war?

Leo Hohmann:

Well, that’s a great question. And I did write about that a couple days ago where I laid out basically three scenarios that President Trump could elect to engage in, none of which really are going to play out in the interests of America and Americans. I think my best advice would be, and I encourage people to go read that for the details because I don’t have time to get into it here, but basically just to quickly summarize, it was try to end the war and just declare victory and walk away saying, “Okay, we accomplished our mission, even though the regime is still in place and that seemed to be one of the big missions was a regime change.” Or we could escalate, and that could happen in one of two ways, either by inserting ground troops, which the president has not ruled out, or if the war continues to go really bad and last for too long, and the United States and Israel run out of munitions, which is a distinct possibility, we could see a nuclear launching by the state, excuse me, by Israel at Iran.

And that would probably be the worst scenario because it would open up Pandora’s box and we could see another country that’s nuclear armed, perhaps Pakistan launch a nuclear weapon at Israel. And by the way, my entire commentary today, people would say, “Well, geez, it sounds awful anti-American and maybe even anti-Israel.” It’s actually just the opposite. The reckless foreign policy that I see being implemented by this administration is going to lead to a less safe America. We’ve already discussed the possibility of sleeper cells and a less safe Israel. That is my concern and that’s what motivates me to ask the tough questions that other people in the media are not asking, but my overall-

Sam Rohrer:

And I think we just lost Leo at this right to the end. And so you heard what he was saying, asking questions is good. Making objective analysis is good. But one thing I will offer here now from a prophetical perspective, I have heard some say, “Well, let’s just eliminate Iran.” If we can just knock Iran down to the point where they’re just of no consequence anymore, we will have accomplished a great deal. I counter that by reminding all of us that in reality, Iran, Persia, remain strong and they’re in league with Russia and Turkey and other countries down below in Northern Africa that ultimately make a move against Israel, and it’s at that point that God steps in and makes his power known. A couple of years ago, when J.R. McGee was with me on the program, when Joe Biden made a statement against Russia, he said, “I’m going to sanction Russia and I’m going to bring them to their knees and bring them to total submission.” And we on the program said, “No, Joe Biden, you will not do that.

” Because Russia is a part of God’s final plan. And we said then two years ago, three years ago, that that would not be the case, that Russia would actually increase in strength as we are seeing. Same thing with Iran. At the end of the day, as believers, we take a look at what the Bible says, we take a look at our obligations toward our own selves, our family, our nation, and we operate accordingly and we pray for those who are in authority. Yes, we pray for our people and we must do that for all of the reasons of which we’ve talked today. Thanks for being with us to see you back here tomorrow, the Lord willing.