Blackwater founder and former Navy SEAL Erik Prince told Bannon’s “War Room” podcast on Saturday that the current situation in Iran is not America’s problem and President Trump must resist pressure from Israel to get involved. He says if the Iranians could build and launch a nuke, “they would have used it by now.” “Clearly, they can strike anywhere in Israel since they’re smacking targets in downtown Tel Aviv. None of them have been a dirty bomb. If they wanted to play that dirty, they would have done it,” he added. “And if the Iranian people want to be free, they should rise up and grab their freedom.” “The Israelis should have been able to develop the ability to do bunker busters themselves,” capable of taking out Iran’s underground nuclear sites, he said. “If they wanted to do it that badly, they could do it themselves. But they want to press with all their political manipulation in Washington. They want to press America into it. And it is not our fight.” About claims that U.S. intervention in Iran will be quick, he warned: “Sh*t happens.” “You break it, we buy it. I don’t want to be responsible as a U.S. taxpayer for reconstructing Iran, especially after what the Democrats did to Libya. It’s still wrecked, 15 years later.” If he had a chance to speak to Trump, he’d say: “The United States has a terrible track record of nation-building, striking out, or being the outsourced enforcer for the Middle East. It is not our fight. It is not worth any more American blood or treasure. Everything we’ve done in the last 30 years in the Middle East has been an abysmal failure. Stop now. If you’re in a hole, the best thing to do is to stop digging.”

STEVE BANNON: Is the party on? And is it a party the U.S. should be hosting? ERIK PRINCE: It is not our party, not our responsibility. And despite all the best, wonderful intelligence estimates that it’ll all be smooth and easy and one quick raid, in and out, people said the same thing about bombing the Serbs in the late 90s. Fifty-seven millimeter anti-aircraft artillery shot down an F-117 stealth fighter. Was it a lucky shot? We don’t know. But the fact is, we lost a bunch of stealth technology to the Chinese. And we lost a pilot, had to do a massive rescue effort. Sh*t happens. The biggest thing is: the Israelis should have been able to develop the ability to do bunker busters themselves. It takes a big steel casing-you can buy them like a tie bar for a die-cast machine, or you can buy an old gun barrel from a warship and you mill it out. And you drop it. They make plenty of guidance kits. And I know they’re flying propeller-driven aircraft over that battle space now because they’re dropping some large bombs. So clearly, the air defense system is not that high. They can, in the same way that a SEAL team drops a boat out of the back of a cargo airplane, deploy a MOAB the same way-a MOAB or a big, 15–20 ton bomb-out of their existing C-130 and get the job done. Or they can rent an IL-76. There’s a ton of those floating around Dubai and around Africa that’ll drop 90 tons. So again, if they wanted to do it that badly, they could do it themselves. But they want to press with all their political manipulation in Washington. They want to press America into it. And it is not our fight. We really sucked at rebuilding Iraq-to the point that we lost Iraq to Iran. And you know the old Colin Powell saying, You break it, we buy it. I don’t want to be responsible as a U.S. taxpayer for reconstructing Iran-especially after what the Democrats did to Libya. It’s still wrecked, 15 years later. STEVE BANNON: But they’re saying-hang on, Erik-this is supposed to be a targeted hit. Just to take out the last part of the nuclear-you know, the enrichment program, the weaponization program-to take that out. Bibi’s now in the New York Post saying today he agrees with you-they can do it, and maybe with additional commandos. But it’s only the Israelis talking about regime change. President Trump’s been pretty adamant about that. Would that change your thinking-that there’s not going to be regime change here? Or do you think that naturally follows and Iran goes into total chaos? ERIK PRINCE: If the Iranian people want to be free, they should rise up and grab their freedom. You know, Reza Pahlavi, the so-called crown prince of Iran-all he’s done for the last 40 years is go to Hillary Clinton’s cocktail parties. They haven’t done anything to actually organize Iranian freedom. So externally sponsoring it-bad idea for the U.S. If it’s just one targeted strike-fine. Let the Israelis do that. Let them figure it out. If it was that strategically important to them. I mean, 15–20 years ago they had the steel to drop-a milled-out heavy steel artillery barrel basically-and turn it into a deep penetrator. It’s not rocket science. I mean, if they can build Iron Dome and all the sensitive guidance and fusing for that, they can certainly build a bunker buster. So again, trying to outsource that and coerce America politically into it is a really bad idea. And I’m pretty resolute on it. STEVE BANNON: Erik Prince, in 2017 in the spring, you wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. You were on Fox. The president saw you. As you know, I tried to shepherd you through different areas of the West Wing, the National Security Council, DOD, all of it, because you had a plan about what we should do in Afghanistan. The president wanted to execute. It didn’t happen for many reasons we don’t need to go into, but the president really trusts your judgments in areas like this. If you had three minutes with the president today-I’ll give you three minutes-tell me what you would tell the President of the United States. ERIK PRINCE: The United States has a terrible track record of nation-building, striking out, or being the outsourced enforcer for the Middle East. It is not our fight. It is not worth any more American blood or treasure. Everything we’ve done in the last 30 years in the Middle East has been an abysmal failure. Stop now. If you’re in a hole, the best thing to do is to stop digging. If the Israelis really feel that now-after all these decades-there’s finally an Iranian nuclear program, okay. And if the Iranians had a nuke, they would have used it by now. Or they would have at least-I mean, they’re at least playing by some rules because they’re not dropping dirty bombs. Clearly, they can strike anywhere in Israel since they’re smacking targets in downtown Tel Aviv. None of them have been a dirty bomb. If they wanted to play that dirty, they would have done it. So again, that is not our job to take out the rest of their nuclear program. If it’s that strategic for the Israelis or for the other-Saudi. STEVE BANNON: Do you think the party’s on? Do you think that, you know, because they can’t find somebody to negotiate with in Tehran, that this weekend, the party’s on, sir? ERIK PRINCE: I hope not. I hope it’s just a bluff or that they’re at least staging the aircraft forward so they can have a shorter response time instead of having to fly them all the way from Missouri.

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