S8 Ep376: Bill Rogigo and Husain Haqqani discuss global turmoil and confrontation, examining U.S. policy failures in Afghanistan. The conversation addresses the ongoing consequences of American withdrawal and the resurgence of threats in the region, highlighting ho
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2026
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bill Rogigo and Husain Haqqani discuss global turmoil and confrontation, examining U.S. policy failures in Afghanistan. The conversation addresses the ongoing consequences of American withdrawal and the resurgence of threats in the region, highlighting how strategic missteps continue to destabilize the area and embolden adversaries.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchelor, and I welcome my good colleagues, Bill Rajo, senior fellow for the Foundation for the |
| 0:21.3 | Defense of Democracy. He keeps the Long War Journal. And Hussain O'Connor, former ambassador from |
| 0:27.0 | Pakistan to the United States, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. And we begin 2026 |
| 0:33.0 | with the conversation about global turmoil around the globe, begin most immediately with what we don't know about a shocking development in the military of the People's Republic of China. |
| 0:47.0 | The top general and his lieutenants from the military commission have all been removed and charged with corruption. |
| 0:57.5 | In addition, there's talk that they had too much power. We don't know anything. We don't know why we know what we don't know. There's no transparency |
| 1:04.5 | here whatsoever, but certainly the second rising power in the world is now headless when it comes to its Pentagon. |
| 1:13.1 | We have the ongoing turmoil apparently in the Middle East about Iran. |
| 1:19.7 | There is an air fleet that has been assembled by the United States over these last days |
| 1:24.4 | that completely intimidates everyone in the Middle East. |
| 1:28.3 | The naval fleet has joined to three carrier battle groups in addition to what we know to be F-15s, |
| 1:36.0 | KC-135s. |
| 1:37.4 | Everything's in place for a campaign, not a raid like the B-2 of June. |
| 1:42.4 | No, a campaign, days of targeting and ground activity around |
| 1:48.2 | the people's around the Islamic Republic of Iran and especially the leadership in Tehran. |
| 1:55.3 | The Ukraine war has receded and it shouldn't because the casualty rate is enormously overwhelming and is |
| 2:02.1 | bleeding the future of Europe right now. |
| 2:04.9 | And yet we don't know where the negotiations are. |
| 2:07.7 | Sometimes there's talk that Vladimir Putin is accepting envoys from Brussels, from NATO. |
| 2:14.9 | Sometimes we're told that there's communication and it goes nowhere. That's the Ukraine |
| 2:20.3 | war where there's active war fighting. And then we have Greenland. And there's no way to summarize |
| 2:25.7 | Greenland other than to say that the administration indicates it wants to buy Greenland. |
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