I'm John Batchler. I welcome my good colleague, General Blaine Holt,

United States Air Force, retired.

He is the author and the narrator of a podcast I highly recommend, dangerous intellectuals.

Number 19 is up right now, and we're looking at 20 for a conversation with an operative, who will be anonymous.

Very good evening, General.

Your compelling information from dangerous intellectuals

drives me to ask questions that you help me to understand

at the scale of an operation as it prepares to strike an adversary.

In question here is Tehran. Some days ago, there was lots of talk

that the strike was coming tonight. It did not. Unknown why. At that time, there were certain

elements that were being flown into the region, and there were alerts everywhere.

They were pointing to C-17s, KC-135s, ships at C, F-35s.

But now there's even more information.

So I'm asking your help to discern what all of this means.

Subsequent to the original understanding, there was going to be a

strike against the regime for murdering its own people. The murders continue. The executions

are underway. But so I begin by asking about the coordination of all these elements. There's

plenty of U.S. Air Force here, the F-15s, the F-35s, the KC-1-35s.

All of that is Air Force, but the Navy is getting involved, too.

The Abraham Lincoln has now arrived in the Arabian Sea with its air wing.

How do the Navy and the Air Force work on this?

Does someone take command of certain regions and handoff to another

...