Speaker 1: Ryan Reno. Five months into the round war, when does
Speaker 1: the oil renewed?
Speaker 2: Very direct, so the Iranians close the Straight of Formos,
Speaker 2: that is a waterway that's responsible for about twenty percent
Speaker 2: of global or hydrocarbons or let's say crude oil and
Speaker 2: related products. And so far they've been letting some friendly
Speaker 2: forces through. Saudi Arabia has been able to redirect a
Speaker 2: lot of their capacity through the bab El Mandeb Straight
Speaker 2: of the Red Sea. Those things have started to come
Speaker 2: undone because now the Hoofies have closed that straight and
Speaker 2: it's looking like a moment of crisis. It's been a
Speaker 2: quiet week in the market, but not a quiet week
Speaker 2: in the action.
Speaker 3: On the ground.
Speaker 2: We saw hits on a Yamboo port, which is the
Speaker 2: port that the Saudis have been directed through their back
Speaker 2: up pipeline. We've seen hits on refineries on Saudi soil,
Speaker 2: and just today there was a hit on ab Cake,
Speaker 2: which is the biggest it's basically the most important refinery
Speaker 2: in the world. It turns the Saudi sour crude into
Speaker 2: sweet crude, which can actually be transported. So there are
Speaker 2: so many disruptions in the oil market. We can get
Speaker 2: into the details but that's the.
Speaker 3: Well so far.
Speaker 1: What seemed remarkable throughout this I mean, oil has spiked obviously,
Speaker 1: but I think by no, if you know, if you
Speaker 1: back five months and said it would drag out this
Speaker 1: long and Iran would close the straight I mean, it
Speaker 1: was real worst case scenario stuff in terms of how
Speaker 1: US war planners have war gained a potential conflict with Iran.
Speaker 1: But you know, even though as Trump said, he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the oils has gone up, we actually expected
Speaker 1: to go up more. I mean, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: when you look at the situation now and now with
Speaker 1: the refinery has been hit in Saudi Arabia, you know,
Speaker 1: at the same time as there's a huge targant of
Speaker 1: refineries in Russia during the Ukraine War, it seems kind
Speaker 1: of incredible to me that we don't even have higher
Speaker 1: oil prices. That's not like one hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 1: a barrel plus. I mean, is this just markets kind
Speaker 1: of in denial. Are they're just holding out for a
Speaker 1: dealers around the corner or what really explains.
Speaker 2: This well, market is a very short term, especially now
Speaker 2: and the way Trump has positioned himself being able to
Speaker 2: talk markets in the direction he wants. There's a psychological
Speaker 2: barrier to not oppose the trumper gender, especially in you know,
Speaker 2: months that are further down the future's curve. So there's
Speaker 2: a big difference between physical barrels of oil and paper
Speaker 2: barrels of oil that are traded on a futures market,
Speaker 2: and I think there's just a big absence of real
Speaker 2: trading in the months into twenty twenty seven, for example,
Speaker 2: and in the current year. It's possible to keep the
Speaker 2: oil price at a reasonable level by releasing strategic reserves.
Speaker 2: So the IEA coordinated strategic reserve release. Europeans released a lot,
Speaker 2: Americas were released a huge.
Speaker 3: Amount of their own reserves.
Speaker 2: And what surprised a lot of people was China was
Speaker 2: able to dip into their their own massive reserves. They
Speaker 2: have one point five billion barrels.
Speaker 3: In reserve.
Speaker 2: They were able to dip into that. They've actually they're
Speaker 2: a their energy is quite fungible and they're able to
Speaker 2: make synthetic fuels from coal as well, and they just
Speaker 2: decided to not refine using these what are called teapot
Speaker 2: refineries using discounted Iranian oil. So when the MoU was signed,
Speaker 2: the oil price really came down to a shockingly low price,
Speaker 2: and you know, these big American banks started creating target
Speaker 2: prices for twenty seven sixty five dollars, you know, seventy dollars,
Speaker 2: things like this, And I think a lot of those
Speaker 2: expectations are basically false because we have just lost so
Speaker 2: much of global supply already and it's looking as though
Speaker 2: that will continue to get worse.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, So the background to where we are
Speaker 1: knowing the Iran war is the m r U, which
Speaker 1: I mean, when it came out, it seemed like pretty
Speaker 1: much a capitulation to Iran. I mean, there was an
Speaker 1: acknowledgment that Iran, alongside Doorman, would control the straight of
Speaker 1: hormose traffic and would actually be able to tax it,
Speaker 1: that they were going to get hundreds of billions in compensation,
Speaker 1: basically war reparations. I see you smile, and you did
Speaker 1: call you did you did suggest that that should be
Speaker 1: the Iranian demand at the beginning of the war.
Speaker 3: It was in the first couple of weeks I.
Speaker 1: Think even got the number roads. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think I said they should demand four hundred billion
Speaker 2: dollars and it ended up being three hundred billion. That
Speaker 2: they were talking about in the mu Yeah.
Speaker 1: All they got negotiated down for four hundred.
Speaker 2: Though maybe they were reading my tweets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's just so influential as show as. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people were shocked because you know,
Speaker 1: obviously there's been all sorts of copes throughout this right,
Speaker 1: you know, there are the people that see Trump doing
Speaker 1: no wrong. I think this was an enormous success. And
Speaker 1: I've been arguing with some of these people throughout this war,
Speaker 1: and you know, typically they point to how many missiles
Speaker 1: have been launched, how many Iranian leaders have been taken out,
Speaker 1: how much of their missile capability has been destroyed, which
Speaker 1: was massively exaggerated. But the entire time, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: there there was an operational success for the US in
Speaker 1: a limited sense, but I mean strategically, it was clear
Speaker 1: very early on, i'd say in the first week of
Speaker 1: the war that this was a failure because when they
Speaker 1: took out the Aetola and other senior members of the
Speaker 1: Uranian government, I mean, it became very clear there wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be a regime change in the way they imagined.
Speaker 1: And I think Trump probably was led to believe by
Speaker 1: the people around them, that the Uranian people were ready
Speaker 1: to rise up, that this regime, you know, it just
Speaker 1: needed the door kicked in. He does seem to believe,
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, these basically propaganda numbers
Speaker 1: that were going around. A body ran killing thirty forty
Speaker 1: thousand protesters last year. But yeah, at that point, there
Speaker 1: was no Plan B, you know, and Pete Hagsat was
Speaker 1: going out saying that the purpose of the war was
Speaker 1: to take out Iranian ability to launch missiles, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, clearly an impossible goal. Rubio was saying something else.
Speaker 1: Trump was saying something else dependent on the day he
Speaker 1: promised regime change. Then he turned around and said it
Speaker 1: was two or three days of limited strikes. At one point,
Speaker 1: he said, a couple of days into the war. So
Speaker 1: the justification has constantly been changing. But yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a real kick in the teeth for some people when
Speaker 1: they started. Actually, the US was willing to see these
Speaker 1: major Iranian demands that you couldn't have imagined prior to
Speaker 1: the war, right, you couldn't have imagined it would be
Speaker 1: in a situation, you know, in a year's time. If
Speaker 1: you said last year, where Iran would be freely able
Speaker 1: to tax global commerce going through the strait of hormones.
Speaker 1: But that's what this military action has led to is
Speaker 1: the creation of Iran as a great power. And Trump
Speaker 1: was surprisingly frank in that he said, yeah, we we
Speaker 1: you know, we're signing us because the alternative is we're
Speaker 1: going to run out a fewel in four weeks and
Speaker 1: there'd be an economic depression. So it was a remarkably
Speaker 1: frank moment, and it was kind of it was kind
Speaker 1: of surprisingly so because it felt like we're at the
Speaker 1: point where Trump's kind of ego and narcissism won't let
Speaker 1: him back down and kind of acknowledged failure here. But
Speaker 1: that's what it was starting to sound like. But then,
Speaker 1: of course, the the MoU collapse.
Speaker 2: Well, let's cast our minds back to about this time
Speaker 2: last year Twelve Day War launched by Israel. It seemed
Speaker 2: as though they were trying to degrade Iran's missile launching capability.
Speaker 2: It seemed it seemed as though at the time they
Speaker 2: had been quite successful in that they.
Speaker 3: Had already had huge successes.
Speaker 2: With taken out Nasrulla, the pager bombing operation. It seemed
Speaker 2: like they had stacked another w Trump sent the B
Speaker 2: two bombers said everything had been destroyed, called it a day,
Speaker 2: and frankly, I thought that would satisfy Netna Who's.
Speaker 3: Ambition.
Speaker 2: And then, you know, towards the end of last year,
Speaker 2: there was a blockade on Venezuela, there were the demands
Speaker 2: to take Greenland for the United States, and there was
Speaker 2: very much an air of an assertive American empire. Aggressive
Speaker 2: American empire again that common in Maduro being picked up
Speaker 2: by you know, American helicopter just flying into Caracas. You know,
Speaker 2: people were praising it as an incredible military operation. There
Speaker 2: was talk of Palenteer being able to shut down Antier
Speaker 2: and you know, doubtless bribing other officials. And then once
Speaker 2: they'd you know, done that, Iran came back into focus.
Speaker 2: The you know, Zionist news outlet started talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: all these protests in Iran and how unpopular the regime
Speaker 2: was and this was the moment to take it down.
Speaker 2: And Resa Pavlavi, he was doing you know, these podcasts.
Speaker 2: Even Patrick David said he'd been contacted to take over Iran,
Speaker 2: and Trump said, oh, you know, we want to make
Speaker 2: a deal, and we weren't sure, you know, how it
Speaker 2: was going to go down. You know, I bet on
Speaker 2: the IDOLO to survive on poly market.
Speaker 3: I didn't. I didn't think they were pull the trigger.
Speaker 2: And then on twenty eighth for February, it'd been blown
Speaker 2: up by about thirty bombs dropped on his presidential palace
Speaker 2: and bunker, including you know, these jade ams that can
Speaker 2: penetrate some of the deepest you know bunkers in existence.
Speaker 2: And yeah, then there was this expectation that, you know,
Speaker 2: Iranians were just going to march into the street and
Speaker 2: kill the IRGC or whatever and have this you know,
Speaker 2: democratic revolution, and I just never saw that happening. But yeah,
Speaker 2: what was your take around that time?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I do remember soon at the time, just
Speaker 1: based on how we've observed how Israel and the US
Speaker 1: have behaved, especially in the last two three years, saying
Speaker 1: that they're going to they'll do the war at the
Speaker 1: start of Purim, right, because they always seem to time
Speaker 1: it with these highly symbolic things. And yeah, when you know,
Speaker 1: it became the pure war of twenty twenty six. At
Speaker 1: the same time, I was still surprised. I didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't expect to see full scale war like this. For
Speaker 1: to drag US as long as it has. You know,
Speaker 1: Trump really did pull the trigger on it. I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that hasn't been discussed enough, it
Speaker 1: was reported at the time in in you know, mainstream
Speaker 1: media by fairly respectable outlets, is the negotiations that came
Speaker 1: to lead up to this because for a time, you know,
Speaker 1: and this is why I thought maybe we want the war.
Speaker 1: You know, there were there were positive sounds coming from
Speaker 1: the negotiations right advance at the time was saying a
Speaker 1: deal was just around the corner.
Speaker 3: I believe it was.
Speaker 1: A leader from Oman was one of the main delegates,
Speaker 1: and he was coming out saying that they were reaching
Speaker 1: a historic deal. This was about to be signed. Some
Speaker 1: interesting details came out since so of course Trump appointed
Speaker 1: Jared Kushner and Steve Whitcoff as head negotiators for the
Speaker 1: US but Jewish, of course. Witkoff is this guy with
Speaker 1: a background in real estate, and I remember he was
Speaker 1: one of the first appointments of Trump and he was
Speaker 1: meant this post that Trump created special Envoy to the
Speaker 1: Middle East. You remember thinking that's only going to go
Speaker 1: one way. And obviously we know about Kushner, but yeah,
Speaker 1: the reports that came out about the negotiations was that
Speaker 1: Witkoff and Kushner had no real knowledge of nuclear enrichment,
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons, any of the things required for US, that
Speaker 1: they didn't take advisors that would have been necessary for
Speaker 1: an understanding of this. Witkoff apparently had little to know
Speaker 1: knowledge of the previous agreements between Iran in the US
Speaker 1: and the history there of frameworks that have been established,
Speaker 1: and what the redlines were and so on. And worst
Speaker 1: of all, that they took Iran's demand to retain research
Speaker 1: facility in Tehran that was actually gifted to them by
Speaker 1: President Eisenhower in the fifties, and that is actually incapable
Speaker 1: of enriching uranium for weapons purposes, that actually can only
Speaker 1: be used as a research reactor, that Iran wanted to
Speaker 1: retain this as part of the deal that would have
Speaker 1: led to them given up their enriched uranium, and that
Speaker 1: Kushner and Witkoff mistakenly, as it was reported in these
Speaker 1: mainstream reports, but mistakenly read this as Iran said that
Speaker 1: it was an absolute demand that they were going to
Speaker 1: proceed with enriching uranium for weapons purposes. And Trump repeated
Speaker 1: this at the beginning of the war. He said that
Speaker 1: Whitcoff came back to him and said, essentially, the message
Speaker 1: from the meetings was that Iran was going to push
Speaker 1: ahead with a nuclear bomb again, you know, as far
Speaker 1: as people verify that, you know, vance again. Days prior
Speaker 1: to breaking down, it said, this has gone. Well, the
Speaker 1: other delegates, the neutral delegates that were there, none of
Speaker 1: them reported that Iran claimed this, that they were making
Speaker 1: this demand that we're going to go ahead with in Richmond.
Speaker 1: So it seems very clearly you can say misunderstanding by
Speaker 1: Witkoff and Jared Kushner. But either it's a profound misunderstanding
Speaker 1: and an ignorance and a failure of them to bring
Speaker 1: the necessary expertise and do the necessary research, which is
Speaker 1: just a you know, incredible profound incompetence, or it's it's
Speaker 1: it's treason, right, it's it's unintentionally misleading Trump and the
Speaker 1: American public to to force this war. But you know,
Speaker 1: that to me is incredible, And like I said, it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like that's that's really been discussed a whole
Speaker 1: lot since then. But I mean, you know, think of
Speaker 1: the implications of that.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, Kushna let's remind people. I'm sure
Speaker 2: they know is Trump's son in law, and Kushna and Netanya,
Speaker 2: who sleep at each other's houses, have an incredibly close relationship.
Speaker 2: So it's it seems as though Israel can call the
Speaker 2: shots directly using American delegates. But you know, in that
Speaker 2: period leading up, people thought that the American administration would
Speaker 2: see sense and be able to reject this path. But
Speaker 2: you know, Trump sacked various generals and you know, even
Speaker 2: the likes of Hillary Clinton and people, you know, senior
Speaker 2: politicians said this was a terrible idea. You know, every
Speaker 2: geopolitical strategist basically agreed the same thing, that you can't
Speaker 2: just take down an Iran that's been preparing for, you know,
Speaker 2: this kind of event for decades and had built their
Speaker 2: entire defense architecture with cheap drones, ballistic missiles and the
Speaker 2: likely help of Russia given the pressure they run that
Speaker 2: and the alliances that have been been made. So yeah,
Speaker 2: once again the little set and calling the shots.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think once the MU was signed, I think people
Speaker 1: probably expected it to last a bit longer than it
Speaker 1: seemed like. We were pretty quickly back to we'd been
Speaker 1: raped forward. What do you attribute that to as far
Speaker 1: as the main cause of the breakdown, I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: there are two sides with objectives that there's obviously no
Speaker 1: way of resolving them. I mean, this is going to
Speaker 1: go one way or the other. It seems clear it's
Speaker 1: going to turn into a U strategic defeat and they're
Speaker 1: basically prolonged and the inevitable. But why the breakdown of
Speaker 1: the initial m or you Well.
Speaker 2: It seems very clear to me that the main issue
Speaker 2: of disagreement was Hesbelah. And you know, all throughout this campaign,
Speaker 2: Netanyahu was literally appealing to the Israelis saying, I have
Speaker 2: made us a regional power. You know, Israeli stock market's
Speaker 2: been rocketing all these victories they had, and you know,
Speaker 2: Natanyahu's got an important election for him personally in October
Speaker 2: because he's also under investigation, so he seems to be
Speaker 2: able to avoid his legal problems whilst he's at the
Speaker 2: HELM and the way he'll be marketing his election campaign
Speaker 2: is making Israel the hegemon of the region. And you know,
Speaker 2: using America to fight their wars was you know, part
Speaker 2: of that strategy. So I never expected the m I
Speaker 2: U to hold I think what Israel broke the terms
Speaker 2: on like day one, and the Iranians were saying, you
Speaker 2: know what, what's this?
Speaker 3: We this this was part of the agreement. And then
Speaker 3: there was this big.
Speaker 1: Dispute over whether Lebanon was included. And then Trump said
Speaker 1: he was going to demand that Israel stop while they
Speaker 1: figured this out. And yeah, it very quickly deteriorated. One
Speaker 1: of the interesting reports was that like as far as
Speaker 1: kind of what concretely ended it was when they stopped
Speaker 1: the hormones traffic again, one of the reports was that
Speaker 1: that was an IRGC led thing, somewhat against the wishes
Speaker 1: of the Uranian government, and it kind of suggests that,
Speaker 1: you know, the RGC itself maybe has sway over the
Speaker 1: direction of Iranda didn't before. And obviously, the the idea
Speaker 1: of doing these decapitation strikes was, you know, take out
Speaker 1: these hardline is the most militant leaders. Something somewhere is
Speaker 1: going to emerge, right, just organically, of course, because every
Speaker 1: country wants to be a liberal democracy, there will be
Speaker 1: some moderate opposition somewhere, you know, totally totally ridiculous idea
Speaker 1: of Iran. But it actually seems like what may have
Speaker 1: happened is they may have brought in more hardline figures,
Speaker 1: and I mean, you know, you can even just think concretely,
Speaker 1: I mean, some of the people that are there now,
Speaker 1: they've had multiple family members, colleagues killed in these strikes.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, the equivalent of like a third
Speaker 1: of you know, their National Congress has been killed in
Speaker 1: this most of their senior military leaders, Supreme Leader obviously,
Speaker 1: but there was no reason to expect that whoever was
Speaker 1: going to be replacing them was going to be more moderate.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you look at the previous Supreme Leader.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know that whole group, like these are
Speaker 1: boomers that have been at the Helm for a long time,
Speaker 1: and as great as the cultural differences are and so on,
Speaker 1: they're still boomers, right. But it seems like the younger
Speaker 1: types far from being reformers. I mean, they've grown up
Speaker 1: in this state of conflict with the US and Israel,
Speaker 1: they've experienced these aggressive wars from outside. They've probably moved
Speaker 1: more away from the kind of Islamic fundamentalism that originally
Speaker 1: came with the Islamic Revolution in Iran and moved more
Speaker 1: towards a kind of Iranian nationalism. Part of that is
Speaker 1: just you know, the forces of modernity kind of undermining
Speaker 1: that generally. But then also a lot of these people
Speaker 1: are coming through a military milieu, and like I said,
Speaker 1: they have this constant specter of the US and Israel
Speaker 1: trying to undermine their influence in the region. And at
Speaker 1: the same time, one of the reasons Iran Dian collapsed
Speaker 1: from the strikes is it turned out they had a
Speaker 1: very decentralized command structure where even as US strikes did,
Speaker 1: they could take at multiple layer after layer after layer
Speaker 1: of commanders in the RGC and the military, and the
Speaker 1: strikes from Iran continued on about it. It had virtually no impact,
Speaker 1: and the US was increasingly baffled by this and as
Speaker 1: it hit military sites and missile installations and so on,
Speaker 1: but it didn't seem to have any effect on Uranian
Speaker 1: launch capability. And part of that is because Iran has
Speaker 1: been prepared for this so long that they've made it
Speaker 1: extremely decentralized. The decentralized cells that can basically operate the
Speaker 1: military in one region or province outside of any supreme command,
Speaker 1: even if that goes dark, and that makes it very
Speaker 1: difficult one for the US to deal with and to
Speaker 1: take out by striking centralized targets. But then two, in
Speaker 1: a case like this with Harmuz, where you know the
Speaker 1: RGC can say, well, you know, we're taking the initiative
Speaker 1: and kind of exercise and video bur on this that
Speaker 1: it may actually make it harder to get a deal
Speaker 1: with Iran in the future.
Speaker 2: I'm sure part of it is a theory of mind failure,
Speaker 2: where Westerners assume that, you know, the citizens of another
Speaker 2: place will think exactly like them and want liberal democracy.
Speaker 2: And you know, Iran is not the most religious place,
Speaker 2: particularly in the urban centers. But they did kill the
Speaker 2: Ayatollah and why and his granddaughter, you know, various lines
Speaker 2: of his family during Ramadan three years before Purim, so
Speaker 2: you know there is a religious significance to that. And
Speaker 2: I'm sure the hoofies and the militias that operate in
Speaker 2: Iraq are probably more on the religious side, certainly Hesbala
Speaker 2: as well, because you know they were originally recruited because
Speaker 2: where she is, you know, in the south of Lebanon
Speaker 2: that have lived there for a very long time.
Speaker 1: The majority of Iranians do support the Islamic Republic. Like
Speaker 1: there haven't been a lot of studies on that. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's it's somewhat difficult.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: You can say, well, if you ask anyone in Iran,
Speaker 1: they're going to they support the regime. Right, But there
Speaker 1: have been some at least one major study that I
Speaker 1: know of that that attempted to get at this neutral
Speaker 1: and was not seen as part to them one way
Speaker 1: or the other. But it did find based on poll
Speaker 1: in thousands of Iranians that support for like the Islamic
Speaker 1: Republic itself as an idea as the form of government
Speaker 1: Igran is eighty to ninety percent, right, So maybe people
Speaker 1: have problems with individual leaders.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: There were protests in Iran. There wasn't a response and
Speaker 1: that killed forty thousand people. But there were protests mostly
Speaker 1: over economic frustrations and inflation.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: But as far as you know, the people that want
Speaker 1: to over traw the Islamic Republic and have you know,
Speaker 1: a liberal democracy and change the flag and so on,
Speaker 1: it's probably under fifteen or ten percent in Iran.
Speaker 2: I didn't know it was the support was that high,
Speaker 2: but I definitely knew the West was exaggerating the unpopularity
Speaker 2: of the regime, which you know, I think it is
Speaker 2: interesting that a platonic state emerged out of Western imperialism,
Speaker 2: you know, fifty years ago, and now they're able to
Speaker 2: you know, have a dedicated guardian class that will fight
Speaker 2: wars for the state, you know, in Iraq, in Syria.
Speaker 2: That's that's quite interesting for quite a high Iq population
Speaker 2: in modern times. I mean, you look at the West
Speaker 2: now and its western countries, like five six percent of
Speaker 2: men say they'd fight for their homeland because they just
Speaker 2: don't agree fundamentally with.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think her rounds, especially high i
Speaker 1: Q country. I think the.
Speaker 2: Well, it was exaggerated by trs as one of the
Speaker 2: smartest in the world, but you know their average is
Speaker 2: what low nineties, and it's a population of ninety million, so.
Speaker 1: I've seen like, yeah, like eighty five to ninety. But
Speaker 1: it's such an ethnically diverse country. You know, the would
Speaker 1: certainly say, like the kind of Persians that make up
Speaker 1: the elite class there seem to be you know, quite
Speaker 1: different ethnically from say like the these areas that live
Speaker 1: in the country and so on.
Speaker 2: I mean, ninety million people, they've got enough geniuses among
Speaker 2: them to you know, be nuclear physicists and scientists. They
Speaker 2: have a very high rate of edgecation. You know, even
Speaker 2: including women. You know, they were they were strong force.
Speaker 2: They're you know, they're not the same as these you
Speaker 2: know tinpot desert countries that you can run over in
Speaker 2: a few weeks. And that was you know, long stated
Speaker 2: by smart people. But you know they've been in the
Speaker 2: crossheads for for a very long time. And yeah, people
Speaker 2: like BB saw this is their their chance to go
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean again, one of the things people got really
Speaker 1: wrong about this war was you know, an older theory
Speaker 1: of like strategic air dominance, where just by taking out
Speaker 1: their ballistic missile capabilities and wiping out their air force,
Speaker 1: you know, Israel have an air superiority that that would
Speaker 1: be enough to remove around.
Speaker 3: As a tread.
Speaker 1: But of course, people that have been studying the action
Speaker 1: this has gone for a long time have been saying
Speaker 1: Iran poses this enormous trending kind of asymmetric warfare capabilities
Speaker 1: now and especially their drone production. Right this shah Head
Speaker 1: drone has become something very known to people now and
Speaker 1: they were producing tens of thousands of them for Russia's
Speaker 1: use in Ukraine. But now with the straight up home
Speaker 1: as closure, I mean, they basically have check mate like
Speaker 1: between their ballistic missiles, their short range missiles that they
Speaker 1: can fire from the coasts, and then their drone production.
Speaker 1: There's really no charunter to it, bar ground invasion just
Speaker 1: destroying the production of these because the factories are massively
Speaker 1: dispersed throughout the country. It's mixed up with civilian infrastructure
Speaker 1: and factories used for udder things. And it seems like
Speaker 1: they can produce I've seen a number that at one
Speaker 1: point they're producing five and a half thousand drones per month,
Speaker 1: but that was I think even before the peak of
Speaker 1: hostilities here, so probably well beyond that. You know, they
Speaker 1: can be hidden anywhere in the room this size, they
Speaker 1: can be launched very easily off the back of the truck.
Speaker 1: So there's really no counter for this. And again, you know,
Speaker 1: people that got this wrong had this older theory of warfare.
Speaker 1: I remember when the war started, right, you had people
Speaker 1: coming out making these very confident pronouncements that this was
Speaker 1: some new age of warfare and of geopolitics where the
Speaker 1: US could just you know, strike leaders and take them
Speaker 1: out and then just keep doing that until they get
Speaker 1: someone they like.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Richard n Ennia was saying that Iran had vindicated Trump's
Speaker 1: leader to capitation strategy, which is maybe the least vindicated
Speaker 1: prediction about geopolitics of any commentator, and he was saying
Speaker 1: that it had proven that the theory of blowback was nonsense. Right,
Speaker 1: just probably wrote that a couple of days before they
Speaker 1: closed the straight But yeah, I mean, essentially, it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like there's any counter to this, and it also
Speaker 1: seems like it's a sign of a new age of
Speaker 1: warfare we're entering. When at the same time this is happening,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, Grain is striking deep into
Speaker 1: Russia's territory up to thousand miles with drones. We're seeing
Speaker 1: these attacks on Saudi oil refineries now by the Jutis,
Speaker 1: and so it seems like a very very significant shift
Speaker 1: in warfare. It's like something like the invention of the
Speaker 1: machine gun and trench warfare, the you know, the kind
Speaker 1: of technological revolutions that that led to Blitzkriagan World War two.
Speaker 1: The fact that there's this huge advantage for asymmetrical attackers
Speaker 1: now that groups like the Huthis could potentially cripple a
Speaker 1: massive state like Saudi Arabia with technology that is inexpensive,
Speaker 1: easy to transport, easy to hide it easy to use,
Speaker 1: and that's usually significant. Well, I think that's a lot
Speaker 1: of the reason. And Yaho is so desperate to clear
Speaker 1: Hesbala out of southern Lebulon because of the emergence of
Speaker 1: Joe warfare. They had a lot of success last summer
Speaker 1: using the their various defensive rockets to take down the
Speaker 1: the ones that the Iranians sent with, you know, with
Speaker 1: the help of the likes of the RAF and you know, whoever,
Speaker 1: whoever else promised to help Israel. But yeah, it's it
Speaker 1: definitely feels like a you know, the dawn of a
Speaker 1: new type of warfare. The Iranians correctly changed strategy this time.
Speaker 1: They decided to hit America where it hurts, which is
Speaker 1: financially shut the straight. They know that, you know, They're
Speaker 1: only if they shut the straight for long enough, they
Speaker 1: can spike the price of oil, they can create inflation,
Speaker 1: they can put pressure on bond markets, and then they
Speaker 1: can back it up with these cheap drones as you
Speaker 1: say they can. They can hit a tanker with even
Speaker 1: a shot head I think is capable of immobilizing a
Speaker 1: tanker if they hit it in the right spot. And
Speaker 1: they've got seven thousand drone and missile factories spread across
Speaker 1: the country. Half of these are privately owned, and it
Speaker 1: appears that the Chinese are giving them precursor materials, and
Speaker 1: the Russians have given them satellite coordinates. And you know,
Speaker 1: the golf has been basically shut down, or at least
Speaker 1: the eastern side of it has, you know, caused untold
Speaker 1: damage to the likes of the City of London, who
Speaker 1: can't ensure ships anymore, who don't get the you know,
Speaker 1: the the money flowing back into their capital markets, and
Speaker 1: you know, Europe especially is on the brink of running
Speaker 1: out of fuel. I mean, I think we'll go through
Speaker 1: these the numbers in more detail in a in a moment.
Speaker 3: But.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's quite remarkable. And the fact that they
Speaker 2: have all these missiles means there are only one desalination
Speaker 2: tank strike away from crippling a place like Dubai. I
Speaker 2: think they hit Kuwait desalinization. They hit a base in Kuwait.
Speaker 2: They got a direct hit on a base in Jordan
Speaker 2: very recently. Now the hoof Is are sending cruise missiles
Speaker 2: to Yamboo. The the militias in Iraq got well, we
Speaker 2: don't know the damage at the time of recording, but
Speaker 2: they got a hit on Abcake, which is such crucial refinery.
Speaker 2: And yeah, this is a massive decentralization of military power,
Speaker 2: and you know, small groups of men are able to
Speaker 2: you know, collect collect these type of munitions from a
Speaker 2: factory attached to warheads and just send it.
Speaker 3: To a target.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it doesn't look as though there's any way
Speaker 2: America can break the stalemate. They'll probably have to back
Speaker 2: down again because you know, the lack of oil supply
Speaker 2: is going to cripple the world economy.
Speaker 1: It's hard to keep track of all the stop start
Speaker 1: periods of the war, but the most the most recent escalation.
Speaker 1: You know, Trump of course was talking big, and he
Speaker 1: was saying that they were going to start to striking
Speaker 1: one civilian bridge or power plant for every day. Round
Speaker 1: didn't make a deal, and there was all this kind
Speaker 1: of tough talk, and then there were a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks of pretty intense strikes on Iran, and I grand
Speaker 1: didn't seem to be retaliating to the same degree. There
Speaker 1: was a strike that killed I think for US nervous members,
Speaker 1: and then very quickly it seemed like there was a
Speaker 1: cessation of hostilities again. And now we're in this kind
Speaker 1: of frozen situation again. I mean, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to embarrass you with the predictions you were making them
Speaker 1: at potentially catastrophic things that could have happened this week
Speaker 1: with the way it was escalating, but then suddenly it
Speaker 1: was frozen again. But what I wonder if that if
Speaker 1: that is you know, the US aversion to losing military personnel,
Speaker 1: like it seems like Trump. I mean, his approval has
Speaker 1: really collapsed over this. I think only a third of
Speaker 1: Republican Trump supporters now are in favor of this war.
Speaker 1: Most wanted to come to an end. I saw one
Speaker 1: poll twenty percent of people that voted for Trump in
Speaker 1: the last election. I think things will be better as
Speaker 1: regards energy prices with a Democrat and power. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people are regretting their vote, and it's really
Speaker 1: hurting him coming up to these mid term election. But
Speaker 1: you know, so far, there hasn't been a lot of
Speaker 1: military personnel loss, and that was kind of the direction
Speaker 1: the US was going in of Okay, like the I
Speaker 1: think the US public has great trauma over Vietnam and
Speaker 1: the kind of sync that turned into in terms of
Speaker 1: the constant escalation, and then you know, soldiers coming home
Speaker 1: in body bags and how damaging that was for especially
Speaker 1: Lynda B. Johnson as president, and then I Rack in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: same thing. There was this real hatred of the idea
Speaker 1: of foreign interventions and sacrificing lives for it. And so
Speaker 1: far Trump has been able to avoid that, you know,
Speaker 1: with Venezuela, his strikes on Syria, the previous strikes on
Speaker 1: Iran in his first term that took out Solemney, and
Speaker 1: then the strikes on the nuclear sides. But he's always
Speaker 1: you know, the people will have this idea that he
Speaker 1: has this there's this new kind of US intervention where
Speaker 1: you can hit people from a distance, maybe you can
Speaker 1: use proxy forces, you can do these these very specialized
Speaker 1: targeted operations like happened in Venezuela. But as someone like
Speaker 1: Jadi Vance would come along and sell this, right, we're
Speaker 1: not like the neocons, we're't like the previous people because
Speaker 1: we're not sending in US troops and you know what
Speaker 1: they would call nation building. But it seems like once
Speaker 1: there's any kind of escalation in US troops, Diane, that
Speaker 1: public opinion could really shift. And I mean it's already
Speaker 1: against the war but at that point it becomes really
Speaker 1: damaging for Trump that hey, you're seven months into this,
Speaker 1: we don't even know what the point of this is.
Speaker 1: Energy prices are going up. You know, he's insisting it's
Speaker 1: going to get better and it's going to end and
Speaker 1: the cost is relatively small. But I think they're really
Speaker 1: averse to losing US lives, and Iran did make that
Speaker 1: threat that every Iranian life that was lost that we're
Speaker 1: going to take an American life in kind. I don't
Speaker 1: know how much they can they can follow true on that,
Speaker 1: but you know, I have to do. You think that's
Speaker 1: maybe be a part of the reason that Trump back
Speaker 1: doones so quickly on that.
Speaker 2: Well, Trump Trump has his own elections later this year.
Speaker 2: Of course, aside from the fact that US bases are
Speaker 2: running out of interceptors, I think all of Trump's threats
Speaker 2: fell flat because Iran promised to retaliate on the Gulf.
Speaker 2: That that's become a trump card for them, and I
Speaker 2: wonder why they didn't do it sooner. To be honest,
Speaker 2: if they get a direct hit on desalinization on a
Speaker 2: place like Dubai, they would just have to clear the
Speaker 2: entire city because you can't live without water. I mean
Speaker 2: they're probably running short because of the lack of food
Speaker 2: even coming in. So you know, the UAE are probably
Speaker 2: wondering why they got into this. You know, the likes
Speaker 2: of Farage of Reformer UK was supporting this war. He's
Speaker 2: been having meetings in UAE, and it makes you wonder
Speaker 2: if there was some Zionist influence that was telling them, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: this will be fine, we'll just take out the Iranians.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Ivran has serious cards to play, and I
Speaker 2: think the way they've run this war has been well measured,
Speaker 2: with perhaps a small criticism that I feel that they
Speaker 2: let a lot of friendly oil through when perhaps they
Speaker 2: should have been a bit harsher on that because they
Speaker 2: didn't spike the oil as much as they might have
Speaker 2: wanted to. I mean, we could go through how much
Speaker 2: oil has been lost in this in this whole period.
Speaker 1: We have Faras definitely hurt himself with that, and I
Speaker 1: think I think Reform pretty quickly tried to walk that
Speaker 1: back a little bit. But this has become politically so toxic,
Speaker 1: and that's an unfortunate aspect as well of this kind
Speaker 1: of new saber rattlan international policy approach of the second
Speaker 1: Trump administration is you know, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: excitement and solidarity from European nationalists with their American counterparts
Speaker 1: when Trump get elected as far as you know, mass
Speaker 1: deportations and so on, and the vibe shift. But in
Speaker 1: the second Trump administration, I mean, the Maga movement and
Speaker 1: the American right has become so hostile to Europe, you know,
Speaker 1: I think, almost too interrational degree. I mean, the during
Speaker 1: the Greenland stuff, it was just, you know, it was
Speaker 1: crazy stuff like and you you have these mega influencers
Speaker 1: that we're talking about Europe as this kind of civilizational enemy,
Speaker 1: and you know Greenland because it's controlled by Denmark. You know,
Speaker 1: Denmark is going to be taken over by Muslims and
Speaker 1: there's going to be like a Sharia state that's going
Speaker 1: to control Greenland. It's like, you know, and okay, I
Speaker 1: mean the demographic problem is pretty bad in Europe, but
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, Denmark is literally like has a
Speaker 1: leftist government that's well it's actually it's a truly important
Speaker 1: people and enforcing like ethnic minimum percentages on cities so
Speaker 1: they don't become minority day and you know, this is
Speaker 1: a country that's probably minority wide already are pretty much
Speaker 1: close to it. And these people are using this kind
Speaker 1: of you know, this like racialist way of attacking European
Speaker 1: countries and getting behind you know, tearing up basically international
Speaker 1: and the international order and treating Europe especially as like
Speaker 1: a permanently hostile actor that they should undermine in any
Speaker 1: way possible. And of course this makes collaboration between American
Speaker 1: nationalists and European nationalists very difficult. I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: a political mover in the in Europe now, I don't
Speaker 1: think you can support or be seen to be supporting Trump,
Speaker 1: trump Ism or anything to do with this administration. I mean,
Speaker 1: THEFD has distanced itself a lot. It's come out in
Speaker 1: favor of Germany getting nuclear weapons, and that is largely
Speaker 1: as a result of this trump Ist US led policy
Speaker 1: making the international order so unstable. You know, but even
Speaker 1: look at like something like SEAPAC was in Hungary this year,
Speaker 1: and you know, there are many people that would kind
Speaker 1: of fashion themselves as dissidents and as leading patriot nationalist
Speaker 1: organizers in their country. And you know, because this is
Speaker 1: is kind of intersects, you know, as SEAPAC does with
Speaker 1: you know, like the American right, the kind of Zionist
Speaker 1: magaled right.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Originally they were going to have Benjamin Netnia, who as
Speaker 1: a speaker he canceled. I think his son spoke instead,
Speaker 1: and so you've you know, you've got these people on
Speaker 1: stage with net Nyahu's son. They played the American national anthem,
Speaker 1: which which people were standing for and observing, and like,
Speaker 1: at the same time this is going on, Europeans are
Speaker 1: experiencing runaway infleation and an energy shock and you know,
Speaker 1: turning on their televisions and seeing that the US is
Speaker 1: striking a girls' school to begin the war that killed
Speaker 1: over one hundred children under the age of ten. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean talk about you know, talk about optics and
Speaker 1: talk about trying to frame yourself, you know, on the
Speaker 1: side of the people. So like it's it's the MAGA movement.
Speaker 1: And this Trump's administration has framed itself as like structurally
Speaker 1: hostile to other people's nationalism, to nationalism itself, to the
Speaker 1: self determination of European countries, and so it's like in
Speaker 1: its essence almost toxic for for European nationalists to be
Speaker 1: associated with that now. And it's all necessary because you know,
Speaker 1: it's just it didn't have to be that way. That's
Speaker 1: what's unfortunate about it. There was no reason for this,
Speaker 1: this extreme hostility. But you know, Trump does these things.
Speaker 1: It's a very kind of haphazard approach to foreign policy.
Speaker 1: We want to be strong, we want to be powerful.
Speaker 1: He gets a whim that he wants to take Greenland
Speaker 1: that no national security advisor or major military figure or
Speaker 1: anyone had had ever said was necessary or in their strategic.
Speaker 3: Interest.
Speaker 1: That you know, the existing treaties and use of the
Speaker 1: island they had at that point was insufficient. But he
Speaker 1: gets this whim and then you know, of course the
Speaker 1: MAGA commentators have to come out and defend it, and
Speaker 1: you know, people like Scott Career and a think piece
Speaker 1: about how you know, Denmark is going to turn communists
Speaker 1: and support Red China. So that's why this is actually
Speaker 1: necessary despite no one else except you know, him and
Speaker 1: Trump and a handful of others seen it. And then
Speaker 1: you just get this hostility to Europeans for wanting to
Speaker 1: have some minimum of respect for their sovereignty and for
Speaker 1: European integrity. So it's just become this extremely hostile movement
Speaker 1: and at the same time that nothing is being accomplished
Speaker 1: really on mass deportations. The majority of the American right
Speaker 1: has basically accepted minority status in the US, and so
Speaker 1: it's a weird thing where they're becoming increasingly jinguistic while
Speaker 1: accepting that the demographic question is kind of finished. Like
Speaker 1: they will still push against illegal immigration and so on,
Speaker 1: but there's obviously a recognition of the limitations there. So
Speaker 1: the US is becoming this kind of Brazilified multi racial state.
Speaker 1: It's having a foreign policy that is increasingly just blatantly
Speaker 1: self serving and attempting to be exploited of of their countries.
Speaker 1: And then you know, when it's traditional closer allies like
Speaker 1: Europe necessarily pushed back on that, it leads to hostility
Speaker 1: from the nationalists or right wing or conservative supporters against
Speaker 1: Europe and against Europeans. And in the same way, you
Speaker 1: can see like Russians have this kind of Eurasianist identity
Speaker 1: where they see themselves as hostile to the West, and
Speaker 1: they may even lie with kind of anti white, non
Speaker 1: white forces. You know, similar things seem to be happening
Speaker 1: to white Americans where they're getting this intense hostility and
Speaker 1: it's not just to you know, European leaders or the
Speaker 1: European Union or something, but was increasingly to like Europeans
Speaker 1: and the idea of Europe. So it's a really unfortunate
Speaker 1: thing that has come out of the Trump phenomenon.
Speaker 3: Dad.
Speaker 1: It's not something I think that you could have predicted
Speaker 1: ten years ago. You know, maybe you could have been
Speaker 1: not with any certain people. It didn't seem like it
Speaker 1: had to be that way.
Speaker 2: And Trump elects Supreme Court judges who uh, you know,
Speaker 2: make a judgment for birth Rice his scitorzenship. So what
Speaker 2: was he actually achieved in terms of his national populist agenda.
Speaker 2: I mean that his rhetorica has been become more and
Speaker 2: more disgusting, more and more threatening.
Speaker 3: You know, he threatened the end end end, the civilization
Speaker 3: of Persia.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know how he addressed it, but Persian civilization,
Speaker 2: Iran or whatever, just just disgusting stuff. And you know,
Speaker 2: because he always made these threats and backtracks, he became
Speaker 2: known as attack president. But in time, in terms of Europe,
Speaker 2: and you know how Europe is, you know, stands to
Speaker 2: lose out of this adventurism is the lack of fuel
Speaker 2: making it to European shores now, so if you go
Speaker 2: through the numbers of what's happened in the last five months,
Speaker 2: the Strait is responsible for about twenty percent of global crude.
Speaker 2: The closure hasn't been always strictly enforced. There was the
Speaker 2: MoU period where activity went up quite a lot, and
Speaker 2: friendlies have been being allowed through. And also the back
Speaker 2: up pipeline that goes through the Red Sea has been
Speaker 2: carried about five million barrels a day. But you can
Speaker 2: reasonably oh, also there were rumors of transponders being turned
Speaker 2: off and the American Navy escorting ships out. But it's
Speaker 2: a little unclear, but we can reasonably assume that two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty million to three hundred million barrels have
Speaker 2: been lost per month. So you know, that puts us
Speaker 2: you know, maybe one and a half billion barrels lost.
Speaker 2: There doesn't seem to be an end in sight now.
Speaker 2: The the midpoint for when this might be concluded on
Speaker 2: polymarket is in late December, so that would that would
Speaker 2: put us up to something.
Speaker 3: Like three billion barrels lost.
Speaker 2: And also things have got worse because the hoofies of
Speaker 2: you know, shut bab El Mandeb yamboo has been hit.
Speaker 2: So in terms of you know, crude supply. You know,
Speaker 2: that's severely restricted. And before the war started we had
Speaker 2: about seven and a half billion barrels globally above ground
Speaker 2: on tankers in strategic reserve, and we might be in
Speaker 2: a situation where half of that has been lost by
Speaker 2: the end of the year. And you can't just take
Speaker 2: the strategic reserve to zero. There is a point where
Speaker 2: you can't take any more out and twenty percent has
Speaker 2: to be left permanently in those reserves. So by spring
Speaker 2: next year we could literally be running dry. And that's
Speaker 2: not to mention the refinery problems. Ukraine has had a
Speaker 2: lot of success targeting Russian refineries. They've taken about taken
Speaker 2: out about forty percent of that capacity. They've recently hit
Speaker 2: the Black Sea, hit tankers, they've hit load you know,
Speaker 2: loading ports. They took out the Kazakh ability to export
Speaker 2: crew through the Black Sea, which goes to Europe. And
Speaker 2: because of ESG and environmental regulations, refinery capability has been
Speaker 2: shut down in America in Europe, so refined product, actual
Speaker 2: usable diesel, actual kerosene for flights, you know, that's in
Speaker 2: very short supply. Diesel has gone up fifty and jetfil
Speaker 2: has almost doubled, and you can only assume that's going
Speaker 2: to get worse. And you know, places in East Asia
Speaker 2: have been rational in their fuel use.
Speaker 3: China's been.
Speaker 2: You know, using the different techniques to lower their demand.
Speaker 2: But if this doesn't get resolved extremely quickly, you know
Speaker 2: the economic damage is going to you know, going to
Speaker 2: be extreme. You know, there's already spikes and inflation. Central
Speaker 2: banks are having to raise rates, The bond market is
Speaker 2: starting to run away in a lot of places. The
Speaker 2: UK bond market has had a torrid time this year
Speaker 2: because you know, not only as the City of London dependent,
Speaker 2: but the the fuel price inflation. There's food inflation because
Speaker 2: of the growing season that got missed and all the fertilizer,
Speaker 2: and you know, from every perspective, this is just complete
Speaker 2: strategic defeat, a complete idiocy. And you know the tale
Speaker 2: of Netanyahu and his liquid nicks waving the American doc
Speaker 2: and bad times ahead. But the public hasn't really gripped
Speaker 2: with this because the media has been so quiet about it,
Speaker 2: and people don't really know how supply chains work. So
Speaker 2: I strongly expect that fuel will be very elevated next year.
Speaker 2: These reserves will presumably have to be rebuilt and supply
Speaker 2: can't meet demand. I mean we're told by these energy
Speaker 2: agencies that demand has peaked, and China's electrifying and everyone's
Speaker 2: electric cars means demand has peaked. I don't think that's true.
Speaker 2: We just had record aviation flights in the last week.
Speaker 2: You know, everywhere around the world wants fuel. And the
Speaker 2: environmentalism of the last ten or twenty years, I think
Speaker 2: people have started to believe believe in it.
Speaker 3: More than they should, and.
Speaker 2: There's a disconnect here and the economic damage is going
Speaker 2: to be sore.
Speaker 3: Well, what do you.
Speaker 1: Think then just to finish up will be the end
Speaker 1: of the conflict itself. I mean it's very hard to say,
Speaker 1: but like, especially since the breakdown to MU, it seems
Speaker 1: like there's so many steps between where we are and
Speaker 1: where they need to go to have some lice and
Speaker 1: agreement and trust has broken down so much, especially among
Speaker 1: the Iranians, and really nothing the Trump administration has done
Speaker 1: since coming to power has done anything that would that
Speaker 1: would help on that front. So, like, what is the
Speaker 1: walk down here? Because either it's it's an escalation trap
Speaker 1: that's unwinnable for the US, which Trump has shown some
Speaker 1: hesitance toward you know, he's he's always said that he
Speaker 1: didn't want to preside over a damage in war or
Speaker 1: an economic catastrophe, and it seems clear that he knows
Speaker 1: the connections there with the Rand War Bass and what
Speaker 1: he said about the MoU. You saw with the MoU
Speaker 1: he was willing to basically acknowledge, like, we have to
Speaker 1: do this because the oil is running out. But then
Speaker 1: it also seemed clear that that was just basically to
Speaker 1: buy them time. But yeah, I mean, there are at
Speaker 1: least signs that Trump isn't just determined to win or
Speaker 1: take the whole world down with him, that he's willing
Speaker 1: to walk back. But I guess what is the off
Speaker 1: ramp there.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I'm not sure, because the Iranians want compensation. They've
Speaker 2: been disrespected in a monumental way. You know, there was
Speaker 2: talk about a three hundred billion dollar payment, and you know,
Speaker 2: the cope was that, you know, the Gulf countries are
Speaker 2: going to pay for it, but I think it ended
Speaker 2: up emerging that America was, you know, on the hook
Speaker 2: for it, but the Israelis aren't going to accept that.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the walkdown is. I think America
Speaker 2: will have to settle because the rest of the world
Speaker 2: is going to blame them for causing this. People want,
Speaker 2: you know, the business always rules. You know, money needs
Speaker 2: to be made, and if it's not settled, then the
Speaker 2: global economy is going to break down. So I guess
Speaker 2: there will have to be some kind of step down
Speaker 2: by the Americans, and Trump will probably have to cover
Speaker 2: up how much of a disaster it has been as
Speaker 2: best he can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we didn't even cover half of what we
Speaker 1: were thinking about on this topic. And of course, you know,
Speaker 1: if we start talking about the way the other geopolitical conflicts,
Speaker 1: most notably Reshure cranefort into this, and how that's going
Speaker 1: to affect all of all of this and the economic consequences,
Speaker 1: it becomes an even more bleak picture. And then there's
Speaker 1: the fact that the US economy is so much popped
Speaker 1: up by the eyebubble and how that feeds into it.
Speaker 1: And when you start combining all of these things together
Speaker 1: you get a potentially very bleak picture. But yeah, that's
Speaker 1: all for now. Thanks for tuning in everyone. Take care,