Speaker 1: I think inertia is a good word to use to
Speaker 1: describe what we see happening right now, because if there
Speaker 1: isn't a change in policy, if it's the same policy
Speaker 1: just amplified or reduced, it's the inertia of the operation
Speaker 1: continues moving in the same kind of general direction, which
Speaker 1: is the hardening of Iran's regime, the weakening of US
Speaker 1: influence in the region, the growth of Saudi Arabia as
Speaker 1: a power regionally, the decline of Israel as a power
Speaker 1: in the region. And one thing on the horizon we
Speaker 1: haven't talked about is the growth of Turkey also in
Speaker 1: the region, because Turkey has always had the dream of
Speaker 1: returning to the Ottoman control over these places between today's
Speaker 1: Turkey all the way down to Yemen.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, hey, welcome everybody to another episode of
Speaker 2: Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Jack Murphy, Jonathan Hackett,
Speaker 2: and Mick mulroy. A lot happening as usual. Throughout this
Speaker 2: past week. We had been striking Iran, that had stopped,
Speaker 2: and then there was talk more and more about a
Speaker 2: bigger hit potentially hitting like energy infrastructure. Saint con Commander
Speaker 2: General Bradley Cooper briefed President Trump about a bigger campaign
Speaker 2: that would that would roughly take about two weeks. I
Speaker 2: feel like we're living this war two weeks at a time. Frankly.
Speaker 2: Another interesting thing I saw from Axios that the Trump
Speaker 2: officials basically were giving We're saying, how like they were
Speaker 2: surprised about a Ran being so aggressive in terms of
Speaker 2: like the negotiations, which is like, I don't know how
Speaker 2: they could be shocked by that. They begin pummeled for
Speaker 2: four months and like they're still around. And as the
Speaker 2: week was leading on, it was You're hearing more and
Speaker 2: more about a bigger strike, bigger strike or bigger campaign
Speaker 2: essentially probably with in conjunction with Israel at least that
Speaker 2: was the talk. And last night basically it was paused.
Speaker 2: I don't know if Trump put out a state or
Speaker 2: a tweet or whatever saying that, oh yeah he did.
Speaker 2: It was like ridiculous. You guys can go ahead and
Speaker 2: read it. I'm not gonna read it for you. It was,
Speaker 2: you know, one of Trump's regular ridiculous kind of tweets
Speaker 2: that he writes a lot of stuff happening in the
Speaker 2: background too that I was reading about, like Saudi Arabia
Speaker 2: NBS called up Trump uh to like, I guess, you know,
Speaker 2: have Trump like a kind of exercise restraint and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, because Iran had you know, warned and tell
Speaker 2: everybody supposedly too that they hit up like Pakistan, Saudi
Speaker 2: Arabia and Turkey. Uh that if they helped us in
Speaker 2: any way with this campaign or this bombing, that they
Speaker 2: would be in line for some sort of retaliation. So
Speaker 2: ended up last night late, like not even late last night,
Speaker 2: it's probably like nine pm Eastern. Trump releases that tweet,
Speaker 2: says it's not gonna happen, and then there's a possible
Speaker 2: deal on the table. This is shit we've heard before
Speaker 2: many many times. Uh, I don't know what the fuck's
Speaker 2: gonna happen. You guys tell me. It's beyond frustrating to
Speaker 2: live this over and over and over again. It's like
Speaker 2: Groundhog's Day. So I'd love to know what you guys
Speaker 2: are tracking with this. Mick, you go first.
Speaker 3: So I was I mean all week, as in every
Speaker 3: week talking about this on ABC, talking about trying to
Speaker 3: isolate the regime economically, et cetera, sanctioned secondary sanctions, and
Speaker 3: then I see brother Jonathan talking to brother Jack about
Speaker 3: how much it isn't going to work. I was like,
Speaker 3: damn it. And then maybe I don't know if you guys,
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously those two know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: But maybe it's a good thing that Jonathan kind of
Speaker 3: does a summary of that. Again, I'm still going to
Speaker 3: advocate that we have to do something so, but I
Speaker 3: think it's important to point that he had in that
Speaker 3: of how the regime is kind of figured out the
Speaker 3: way around that and essentially they still become rich, that
Speaker 3: it only really impacts the people. So I think we
Speaker 3: need to take that into consideration. But I'll leave that
Speaker 3: for Jonathan to explain even more. But so where we
Speaker 3: see this week, We're in a situation right now where
Speaker 3: we obviously can't leave it at the current state or
Speaker 3: we have failed. And I always look at this as
Speaker 3: we look at it as a partisan thing. Be so
Speaker 3: I want to figure out a way out of this
Speaker 3: that is successful for the United States, which I think
Speaker 3: also translates successful for the region and the world. Right,
Speaker 3: So we can't leave it like this. Rono controls the
Speaker 3: straighter Homotes, that's unacceptable. They are likely going to go
Speaker 3: for a nuclear weapon now, So we haven't ensured that
Speaker 3: they will never get at nuclear weapon. We probably have
Speaker 3: in part inspired them to. I think Midnight Hammer did
Speaker 3: degrade it. But now the people that are in power,
Speaker 3: and I think could make a very good case that
Speaker 3: if they would have had the nuclear weapon, which some
Speaker 3: of them have been advocating for the whole time, they
Speaker 3: wouldn't be getting attacked right now. And I think even
Speaker 3: if you know, you're any American who despises the Urinian regime,
Speaker 3: you can still put yourself in their position and say,
Speaker 3: so what I right, I would rather be you know,
Speaker 3: North Korea than are on right now. So we have
Speaker 3: not met that objective. We have to figure a way
Speaker 3: to meet that objective. The objectives that we came close to,
Speaker 3: like degrading their ballistic missile capacity, manufacturing capacity, et cetera,
Speaker 3: are going to be replaced. So they are going to
Speaker 3: be replaced. So within six months, I don't know what
Speaker 3: the assessment is, but whatever the assessment is, we will
Speaker 3: get to a point where they have replaced it, maybe
Speaker 3: exceeded it, and now definitely aren't going to restrict themselves
Speaker 3: on amount and range. So we're going to get in
Speaker 3: a place where even that wasn't a success, at least
Speaker 3: at the time that they reach it. So what are
Speaker 3: we going to do differently? I really and I know
Speaker 3: this might be difficult for the current administration, but they're
Speaker 3: going to have to do a little humble pie with
Speaker 3: the international community. Talk about the fact that even though
Speaker 3: none of them may have agreed or very few of them,
Speaker 3: with the US going to war thrown, this is impacting
Speaker 3: the world. It's impacted their people. This is a global
Speaker 3: trade issue. International waterways shouldn't just be the responsibility even
Speaker 3: if we had a potential cause in it of the
Speaker 3: United States, whether it's military coalitions. I know we talked
Speaker 3: about this last nine political coalitions, how to isolate the regime,
Speaker 3: how to find IRGC commercial infrastructure around the world, seize it,
Speaker 3: stop it, affect it. I know this isn't going to
Speaker 3: be the be all answer to any of this stuff,
Speaker 3: and it's probably going to take a long time, but
Speaker 3: something needs to change their perspective. The current situation, other
Speaker 3: than a major escalation is not going to change their mind.
Speaker 3: And the assessment of at least the CIA and DI
Speaker 3: is even the massive escalation isn't going to change your mind.
Speaker 3: So where do we go from here? I think that
Speaker 3: is at least part of the answer. But I do
Speaker 3: think Jonathan's point to Jack earlier in the week, I
Speaker 3: think I think it was this week, I don't know,
Speaker 3: needs to be addressed as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the thing that you're mentioning Nick about what
Speaker 1: Jack and I talked about, we did like an Iran
Speaker 1: deep dive, like a special episode, like a historical kind
Speaker 1: of you know, narrow focused talk. I think that was
Speaker 1: this past week came out so for listeners if they
Speaker 1: missed that, they can check that out.
Speaker 4: Was like off schedule.
Speaker 1: But basically we were discussing all kinds of things about Iran,
Speaker 1: but in particular the sanctions, because that's a big hot
Speaker 1: topic in the West, not just the United States, but
Speaker 1: even back when the JCPOA was being negotiated, that was
Speaker 1: a question of how do we fit sanctions into the
Speaker 1: JCPOA as part of it, as a as a you know,
Speaker 1: a response to them breaking parts of the JCPOA, plus
Speaker 1: separate US sanctions and separate EU sanctions that could be
Speaker 1: relied upon to influence behavior, because that's the whole point
Speaker 1: of using the economic instrument of national power, is to
Speaker 1: influence the outcome of another state's behavior in a way
Speaker 1: that's beneficial or at least neutral not negative to us.
Speaker 1: And that big question is do sanctions do that? And
Speaker 1: I argue that no, they don't if they're alone, if
Speaker 1: they're used as a single insular tool to affect a
Speaker 1: country that's an authoritarian state. No, And the reason is
Speaker 1: sanctions are designed to harm capitalist countries. For example, in
Speaker 1: a democracy like America, if another state that was powerful,
Speaker 1: like China, for example, sanctioned America in some way, let's say,
Speaker 1: on car manufacturing parts or Amazon items at their point
Speaker 1: of origin, or crude oil production that produces plastics, which
Speaker 1: the US relies heavily on, like somehow affecting this massively
Speaker 1: so it touched a lot of Americans. Americans would go
Speaker 1: to the polls and they would vote and change the
Speaker 1: political representation in a way that would modify that, and
Speaker 1: that would be something that China would benefit from. That's
Speaker 1: how a sanction would work in a democracy. Unfortunately, countries
Speaker 1: like China, North Korea, Iran and others are not democracies
Speaker 1: at all, and they're actually designed to separate the small
Speaker 1: kernel of leaders from the rest of the population. In
Speaker 1: Iran is an excellent example of that. Where the small
Speaker 1: kernel of elites are extremely resilient and they have dense
Speaker 1: real estate portfolios in London, they have money in banks
Speaker 1: all over the world. They have Swiss bank accounts with
Speaker 1: billions of dollars. That's why there's been all this discussion
Speaker 1: about unfreezing assets. And let's say South Korea, for example,
Speaker 1: there's like six billion dollars sitting in a bank account
Speaker 1: that doesn't belong to the Iranian people.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean it.
Speaker 1: Does technically, but it's not accessible by them. Instead, it's
Speaker 1: the regime alone that has control over this. And that's
Speaker 1: a big problem with sanctions is that, Okay, you sanction
Speaker 1: an authoritarian state, they're just going to ignore the sanctions.
Speaker 1: They're going to further oppress the people. They're going to
Speaker 1: squeeze every dollar and cent out of those people. They're
Speaker 1: going to continue working in the black market. And it's
Speaker 1: important to remember, even in the United States, where we
Speaker 1: have capitalist economy that is free, most of our economy
Speaker 1: is actually in the private markets. It's not public that
Speaker 1: there's a whole shadow banking system. In the United States,
Speaker 1: for example, you can't go and open a bank account
Speaker 1: at JP Moore or at Morgan Stanley, but that's where
Speaker 1: most of the assets in the country sit is in
Speaker 1: these non bank banks. Iran has non bank banks too,
Speaker 1: so does Russia, so it does China. That's how all
Speaker 1: these transactions are happening every day, billions and billions of
Speaker 1: dollars a day moving between these countries despite these sanctions.
Speaker 1: So there is a lot of arguments for sanctions and
Speaker 1: a lot of arguments against sanctions. But I think it's
Speaker 1: something that's not debated enough and understood from the perspective
Speaker 1: of the ones being sanctioned, not from American consumption of
Speaker 1: you know, voters who say, oh, it's good we did something.
Speaker 1: It's good to do something, but maybe there's other things
Speaker 1: to do as well in conjunction with that. Right now,
Speaker 1: we're using a military instrument, which we're using in Iran.
Speaker 1: We're also using an economic instrument. We're attempting to use
Speaker 1: a diplomatic instrument, attempting here and there, and it's very
Speaker 1: haphazard compared to the other two instruments. But there needs
Speaker 1: to be some more unification across these different instruments so
Speaker 1: that they're all going towards the same objective. Like you mentioned, Mick,
Speaker 1: there are certain objectives here they have to be unified.
Speaker 1: You can't have three different objectives for each of these
Speaker 1: instruments going after the different objectives. They have to be
Speaker 1: the same objective with little components that kind of all
Speaker 1: lead to this larger grand objective.
Speaker 3: So we could still go after the IRGC commercial infrastructure
Speaker 3: sees it to affect them since they are not insulated
Speaker 3: from their own means of crazy.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and actually a great example of that is I
Speaker 1: mentioned this before, like Audi and Mercedes for example, they're
Speaker 1: not allowed to ship completed vehicles to Iran. So what
Speaker 1: they do is they just separate the pieces by several
Speaker 1: inches and put styrophone between them in giant box and crates,
Speaker 1: bring them into Iran, take the little pieces out, put
Speaker 1: the vehicles together. Now you've got a complete vehicle. Because
Speaker 1: the way the law is written, it cannot be a
Speaker 1: completed vehicle ship to Iran, but pieces can be. Both
Speaker 1: sides are very smart. Both sides have an economic interest
Speaker 1: in evading this law. Right, same thing in London, there's
Speaker 1: certain rules about how foreigners can own assets in the UK.
Speaker 1: The IERGC commanders read this and they're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: can just avoid this by incorporating a new business in
Speaker 1: company's house, which is the UK's registry for basically like
Speaker 1: LLC's in the United States. I can just incorporate rate
Speaker 1: this with a different person's name on a different uh
Speaker 1: little identifier here, but keep the address the same, same building,
Speaker 1: same bank account, same postal address, all of us the same.
Speaker 1: But because the way the law is written, I'm allowed
Speaker 1: to bring my hundreds of millions of dollars in here
Speaker 1: and then I can go buy all the real estate
Speaker 1: down in this very expensive area in Mayfair in London,
Speaker 1: which they do. They actually just bought a house. Uh
Speaker 1: Moshtebah from his coma bought a huge mansion across the
Speaker 1: street from the Israeli embassy in London a couple of
Speaker 1: months ago during the during the war, while the war
Speaker 1: was ongoing, you know. So it's like they see these laws,
Speaker 1: we wrote these laws, they know how to avoid them,
Speaker 1: and it's like anyone who's wanting to get something done,
Speaker 1: they're going to look at it and be like, how
Speaker 1: do I go over, around, under, or through this obstacle,
Speaker 1: just like any survivor would. And I think it would
Speaker 1: be a mistake for us to think they would look
Speaker 1: at that and be like, oh, I'm not allowed to
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 4: No, of course they're going to find a way to
Speaker 4: do it.
Speaker 3: How do you even know that it is public?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh wow, we see.
Speaker 5: The laws in the city of London are totally different.
Speaker 2: Well, you got a ton of Russian money too in
Speaker 2: London too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: London's a great target because they left the European Union.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the rules in the EU that
Speaker 1: prevented a lot of this activity do not apply in
Speaker 1: the UK, or at least they apply loosely.
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Speaker 3: Well, they could change the rules.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's one of.
Speaker 6: The other problems with sanctions against Iran that you know,
Speaker 6: we've had various levels of sanctions in place against the
Speaker 6: Iranian since the nineteen eighties, and that I mean, I
Speaker 6: feel like we really tried to isolate Oran from the
Speaker 6: international economy to the extent that we were able to previously.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's not what we do with everybody. You know,
Speaker 2: We've done that with Venezuela, Cuba, like everybody except China,
Speaker 2: like we really like them for some reason.
Speaker 1: But well, if you follow Meerscheimer's theory of international relations,
Speaker 1: which I know, do you love Meersheimer?
Speaker 2: I used to like meher Scheimer a lot. I think
Speaker 2: he's lost his fucking mind as.
Speaker 4: Of went off the rails.
Speaker 1: But the concept is basically like, Okay, you've got this
Speaker 1: concert of nations and they all have their own interests.
Speaker 1: There are these black boxes interacting with each other, all
Speaker 1: out for their own interests, and if you isolate some
Speaker 1: of them, even for different reasons, they're going to seek each.
Speaker 4: Other out for support.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because these these states need support, they need international trade,
Speaker 1: they need places to put their money, take their money,
Speaker 1: all the stuff. It's not crazy to think that Iran, Venezuela, China,
Speaker 1: North Korea would become friends in this context, and it
Speaker 1: is kind of what's happening.
Speaker 2: Of course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a fact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we're seeing go ahead, misar.
Speaker 3: So one thing I've started to hear more of. Do
Speaker 3: you think aron would even accept anything close to the
Speaker 3: JCPOWA again, like could we say okay, okay, I don't either.
Speaker 1: No, And especially because Hassan Rahani was the chief negotiator
Speaker 1: for that, and we're not the chief negotiat, but he's
Speaker 1: heavily involved negotiations for that, he has a nuclear background,
Speaker 1: he was the president at the time. Afterward, you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of this this moment of daytont where the
Speaker 1: Iranian government was kind of opening up a little bit,
Speaker 1: kind of like Glass Noost and the nineteen eighties with
Speaker 1: the Russians kind of thinking like, Okay, we need to
Speaker 1: be a little more global now. But as you can see,
Speaker 1: there's a massive backlash to that in the regime and
Speaker 1: they were like, no, that was wrong. Look what it
Speaker 1: did to us, It harmed us. We're never going back.
Speaker 1: And even now they talk about Rahani being a trader,
Speaker 1: they talk about Amani Najad being a trader, which is
Speaker 1: crazy because Amana Nijad has like died in the Wall
Speaker 1: Revolutionary Iran. So like to hear some of these folks
Speaker 1: say that, I mean, it just shows how opposed they
Speaker 1: would be going back to something like that, which again
Speaker 1: they said was heroic flexibility, sacrificing to even accept this
Speaker 1: deal in the first place. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: like humiliation and shame within the regime decision making body
Speaker 1: to accept that in twenty fifteen in the first place.
Speaker 1: And look where it got them, you know, especially after
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen and eighteen when we withdrew from JCPOA, took
Speaker 1: them out of Swift again, which was the banking system
Speaker 1: in the world, forced them into the shadow banking system
Speaker 1: even deeper, which then hurt us. You know, So they
Speaker 1: see that as like a big mistake and they won't
Speaker 1: go back to that, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I know that. They're like, obviously the IRGC is
Speaker 2: not a trustworthy organization, Like I know that, but they're
Speaker 2: obviously very cunning negotiators and just in general very crafty.
Speaker 2: Why would they ever trust anything we have to say
Speaker 2: at a negotiation table because the last one that was
Speaker 2: like a real negotiation that was you know, it was
Speaker 2: going over the weekend and set to start on Monday.
Speaker 2: We bombed Iran and smoked like, you know, their top
Speaker 2: tier leadership.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and we had an mu that lasted how long, right, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean forty eight hours or whatever it was.
Speaker 3: Short, it seems like Secretary of Rubio is getting more involved.
Speaker 3: I think that's a good thing. I think he's very experienced,
Speaker 3: and because whoever did the draft of that MoU that
Speaker 3: failed miserably, it was so vague that it was a
Speaker 3: waste of time, and it probably Tod's point. I think
Speaker 3: it's going to make actually solving this more difficult because
Speaker 3: now they don't even they don't and potentially we don't
Speaker 3: believe each other at all, even after written in signatories
Speaker 3: and signing it in France and all this other stuff.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have to We're gonna have to get the
Speaker 3: professionals involved in negotiations, so we're gonna have to actually
Speaker 3: stick to our agreement, or the whole negotiation process is
Speaker 3: going to be just considered window dressing, like both sides
Speaker 3: are doing it because it doesn't commit him to anything,
Speaker 3: and the rest of the world's eventually going to figure
Speaker 3: out it's it's simply not going to end. So whatever
Speaker 3: impact is going to have on the international energy markets
Speaker 3: or stock markets, it's just gonna have because they're going
Speaker 3: to stop listening to on the verge of negotiated settlement
Speaker 3: or we're on the verge for massive. I mean, they're
Speaker 3: just gonna say that's just like Charlie Brown's teacher talking
Speaker 3: right now. It's just not it's just noise. Because we
Speaker 3: get to the verge of all these things and then
Speaker 3: like I think right now, correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: But the last night checked was we were going to
Speaker 3: do massive escalation. We heard that he had approved it,
Speaker 3: and now we're not because there's some framework that's agreed to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we So I wanted to mention that because
Speaker 2: like that's part I missed in the beginning. We introduced
Speaker 2: that framework last minute. It wasn't a ran being like
Speaker 2: you know what, like let's talk so like this whole
Speaker 2: build up over the last week about this massive you know,
Speaker 2: bombardment or this campaign for two weeks frankly seemed like
Speaker 2: a bluff and like we it's it's not like it's
Speaker 2: the first time. A couple of weeks ago it was
Speaker 2: the same thing, like there was to talk about a
Speaker 2: bigger escalation and stuff like that, and then Trump suddenly
Speaker 2: stopped it. Like how many times can you do that
Speaker 2: before it's like shit, or get off the pod. This
Speaker 2: isn't gonna work, And clearly it didn't work. This time,
Speaker 2: because it wasn't like Iran was calling up and saying, hey,
Speaker 2: let's let's talk about this, like we gave the cutteries
Speaker 2: a deal to give to Iran and then we paused
Speaker 2: the you know, the air strikes.
Speaker 1: But also seems the Saudi's played a big part in this.
Speaker 1: I mean, we all saw that MBS called Trump. But
Speaker 1: I think you know, over the weekend Saturday, in fact,
Speaker 1: Kuwait was hit by drones. There was a ship that
Speaker 1: blew up off the coast of Oman. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of kinetic activity that's concerning to golf countries, to
Speaker 1: the GCC countries. And I think it's not just NBS,
Speaker 1: it's other golf countries. Obviously the kuwaitis because they got
Speaker 1: attacked yesterday, but others calling up the US and saying hey,
Speaker 1: please tone it down, or even to Iran as well,
Speaker 1: if it's Qatar and Oman asking Iran please tone it down,
Speaker 1: because you're affecting our situation here locally, because it's the
Speaker 1: regional concern too. It's not just an international conflict, although
Speaker 1: it is. But for the GCC countries, they're very concerned
Speaker 1: about the here and now, like what they can see
Speaker 1: right off their coastline, and that's that's their their lifeblood,
Speaker 1: the economy that flows out of there, And the longer
Speaker 1: that there's under attack, the less they can return to
Speaker 1: the status quo, which if they ever could, I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: So an interesting point somebody brought up on the Egypt
Speaker 3: attack more tactical, I suppose, But there's a view that
Speaker 3: it might have been launched from like a maritime platform,
Speaker 3: right because the Shahad even like the one thirty six,
Speaker 3: This person explained, the travel from like western Iran to
Speaker 3: get there would have taken hours, It would have gone
Speaker 3: over multiple countries. It would have if it would have
Speaker 3: been launched by the houthis still same thing would have
Speaker 3: gone like the entire length of Egypt. So where did
Speaker 3: it come from? I'm sure, I'm sure the intelligence courunity
Speaker 3: is looking for the answer, but it's likely didn't come
Speaker 3: from either. Are those two places? So are they starting
Speaker 3: to use like clon dustine maritime platforms that they can
Speaker 3: launch and then skied out but diet closer to things
Speaker 3: like Egypt? Right, So there's Suez canals are too, right?
Speaker 3: Is that going to be challenged? Is is this something
Speaker 3: we should be looking at?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 4: You think about the dows that they use.
Speaker 1: Already, The Houthies use these the you know part of it,
Speaker 1: and dows are these small wooden craft, very small boats
Speaker 1: that are very hard to detect, that actually make up
Speaker 1: a lot of their non standard maritime capability, not only
Speaker 1: Iran but also the Houthis and in Somalia as well.
Speaker 1: Isn't their concern along the Horn of Africa region all
Speaker 1: the way up into the Red Sea, up and down
Speaker 1: the hundreds of kilometers of coast of Egypt. There, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be difficult to get a dow that can hug
Speaker 1: the coastline, popping along the coastline, keeping it in view,
Speaker 1: you know, about ten miles off the coast, just moving
Speaker 1: all the way up until they get to a point
Speaker 1: where they can launch that shut head with that they had
Speaker 1: hidden underneath the you know, the underbelly of the doo
Speaker 1: and then skid out a lot of the way or
Speaker 1: continue on as if they had just been, you know,
Speaker 1: trading up and down the coast like they have for centuries.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to track these these dows, and I
Speaker 1: think it's a major concern from a nonstandard maritime perspective.
Speaker 2: Yea, I wanted to say something.
Speaker 6: I think I was just gonna add that, you know,
Speaker 6: there's this sort of like, you know, wishy washy sort
Speaker 6: of conversation that I don't think a lot of people
Speaker 6: want to have or here, but the question of credibility
Speaker 6: and the question.
Speaker 5: Of hard power versus soft power.
Speaker 6: And I think this administration's approach has been you know
Speaker 6: that soft power doesn't exist. That's not a real thing.
Speaker 6: Everything is about hard powers. We have more guns than
Speaker 6: you do, and there's a certain amount of you know
Speaker 6: that that holds true to a certain point.
Speaker 5: And I think we're seeing that right now that you.
Speaker 6: Know, we need diplomacy, we need diplomatic pressure, we need
Speaker 6: all these other things, and just relying on air strikes
Speaker 6: as a method of hard power to lead into negotiations.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think we just don't have the credibility.
Speaker 6: That's what sort of you were saying. D That, Like,
Speaker 6: we go back and forth and back and forth, and
Speaker 6: at a certain point people just don't believe what you're
Speaker 6: saying anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like that old story about Vietnam, or
Speaker 3: the US colonel says, you know, we won every battle. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and the Vietnamese colonel said, that's both true and irrelevant.
Speaker 3: Like we do have the most guns, the biggest guns
Speaker 3: are the best guns and the best military. I think
Speaker 3: even Iran will probably say, yeah, gotcha, and right now
Speaker 3: it's not that relevant.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: So the issue I think is we've got to have
Speaker 3: better policies. Better policy makers make better policies. And I'm
Speaker 3: not making this partisan, but this is this has been
Speaker 3: something that's gone through multiple administrations now, you know, and
Speaker 3: meeting Democrat and Republican and you know, when's the last
Speaker 3: time we've really came out successful, Say, winning a war
Speaker 3: is a it's kind of hard to find, right, but
Speaker 3: being successful for having gone to war like for the country.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm obviously biased, but it's not the military's fault.
Speaker 3: They're told to do something, to do the best they can,
Speaker 3: They're told to expand they're told to this and it
Speaker 3: is the actual decision makers, whether they are both sides
Speaker 3: of the aisle need to stop relying on the fact
Speaker 3: that we simply have the best military, that they can
Speaker 3: do anything they want, even if the policy itself is flawed.
Speaker 3: They can't necessarily make up for bad policy, is I'm
Speaker 3: getting And then again, that has been decision is over
Speaker 3: the last I mean, when's the last time we had
Speaker 3: accessful military.
Speaker 1: Endeavor Operation Anaconda and then we continued after October two
Speaker 1: thousand and one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say Grenada.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, well, I mean I think that like if
Speaker 3: you look at Desert Storm, right, it was limited in scope,
Speaker 3: it had a clear objective, and we stopped there. So
Speaker 3: I know a lot of people, oh, what is it
Speaker 3: even a war? Well, that's the point.
Speaker 5: That's the point.
Speaker 3: You know. The point isn't to have a long drawn
Speaker 3: out war. Everybody gets you know, combat action rivets. The
Speaker 3: point is to win and be successful with our policy.
Speaker 3: So it might have been one hundred hour ground war,
Speaker 3: but that's what we want because it was a clear
Speaker 3: set objective. The military uners said what it was politically, strategically,
Speaker 3: and how to accomplish it, the accomplishment, and then they
Speaker 3: were done. There wasn't no expansion, there was no fish
Speaker 3: and cree. We didn't rebuild the country anyway. So that's
Speaker 3: a bigger issue that I don't we can solve here
Speaker 3: on eyes on, but they I guess my grand point
Speaker 3: is just because we have the biggest military doesn't mean
Speaker 3: we can fixed flawed policy decisions, and.
Speaker 1: On your soft power note, I mean, look at China.
Speaker 1: They are maximizing soft power in a way that is globally.
Speaker 4: Successful and has been. And it's not a secret either.
Speaker 1: They're very vocal about this is our goal. We will
Speaker 1: set up this stuff around here, We'll publish these documents
Speaker 1: that say these things about what we're going to do,
Speaker 1: and then they go do it, and then we're like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, they're setting up police stations in Solomon Islands.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, they said they were going to do
Speaker 1: that like years earlier, and they're doing it right now.
Speaker 2: I mean they have it them in New York. They
Speaker 2: have like these unofficial police stations in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: They had one in Texas and the constant closed because
Speaker 1: they were doing that.
Speaker 2: Wait exactly, John, I'll do a way better job of
Speaker 2: this than me.
Speaker 1: So they're basically enforcing China's laws inside the United States
Speaker 1: using these clandestine police stations with actual Chinese domestic police
Speaker 1: in out of the embassies. The embassy I don't remember
Speaker 1: if it was Houston, it was one of the major
Speaker 1: cities in Texas during the first tim administration, was closed
Speaker 1: because of this reason. There's one in California. There's one
Speaker 1: in New York City. The New York City one's huge,
Speaker 1: and they're actually like going out and enforcing Chinese laws
Speaker 1: inside the United States, so.
Speaker 3: On Chinese citizens in Chinese the bulbs.
Speaker 1: So they're using that pressure campaign that you know, the
Speaker 1: MSS the the Chinese Ministry of State Security does as well,
Speaker 1: where they'll say, hey, you're of Chinese origin, or you're
Speaker 1: Taiwanese origin, you're gonna either work with us or we're
Speaker 1: gonna do something to your family in whichever place they are,
Speaker 1: and so on, or actual Chinese citizens who are here
Speaker 1: doing things, dual citizens or even visitors, they enforce laws
Speaker 1: against them as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's soft power, yea, yeah, it doesn't get any like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's pretty incredible. Where do you guys think this goes?
Speaker 2: I mean, we're kind of like in this fucking like
Speaker 2: nebulous like purgatory area where the all right, we're not
Speaker 2: gonna bomb them now. Doesn't seem like there's a lot
Speaker 2: like real deal talks. Maybe some backschanneling and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: but frankly, we all know what the issue is, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't see Iran giving up their stranglehold
Speaker 2: on the horn moves. So right, so where do we
Speaker 2: where do we go from here? Is it still more?
Speaker 2: Are we gonna do this two week campaign from San
Speaker 2: Colum Commander Bradley Cooper or like that's gonna go where?
Speaker 2: You know, arguably it's could be work. You know, hitting
Speaker 2: infrastructure could be looked at it as war crimes. I
Speaker 2: know that some of them are dually use and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, but like, what does that do if we
Speaker 2: start talking about it again, if we actually go through it.
Speaker 2: What does that do if like a Rand starts retaliating,
Speaker 2: hitting Israel, hitting our bases continuously, We're still at the
Speaker 2: same fucking place, and then gas is likely ten dollars
Speaker 2: more per per barrel, So if not more, because at
Speaker 2: some point, you know, China was doing a little bit
Speaker 2: to like kind of alleviate the global crew price, but
Speaker 2: they've since stopped doing that. So at some point, like
Speaker 2: someone's gonna have to pay for this fucking check, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, it does sound like we're going to focus
Speaker 3: on infrastructure targets because I imagine there they've assessed it. Look,
Speaker 3: we've hit all a lot of military targets and it's
Speaker 3: not changed their perspective. So I think you're right about
Speaker 3: the issue of international law and whether this is clear
Speaker 3: under the law of arm conflict. It has to have
Speaker 3: a serious nexus to their military capacity. But say, for
Speaker 3: argument's sake, it does. He still doesn't negate the fact
Speaker 3: that they have a vote and they're going to counterattack, right,
Speaker 3: So if we hit extree main energy generation facilities, they
Speaker 3: would have major impacts on the people as well, of
Speaker 3: course as the regime, and they're going to course do
Speaker 3: the same thing dur all the golf allies. So I
Speaker 3: imagine the golf countries are super concerned because power desalinization.
Speaker 3: It would have a bad impact on Iran. It would
Speaker 3: have a catastrophic impact on Kuwait, Qatar, Uae, Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 3: I mean, they have a population that can't necessarily exist
Speaker 3: there if they don't have the capacity to make water.
Speaker 3: Like how long could you go without water? Was it
Speaker 3: three days? What are you gonna do with the population
Speaker 3: if you've run out of water? And I don't know
Speaker 3: the details of how, but we do know how reliant
Speaker 3: they are on it and SODA's Iran, and I'm sure
Speaker 3: they've made an assessment of how they can actually overwhelm
Speaker 3: their system. And what's the other issue on escalation, It's
Speaker 3: the lack of interceptor vessels, right, So it's you got
Speaker 3: kind of a perfect storm. So we hit them, they
Speaker 3: hit our allies because we don't have the adequate enough
Speaker 3: of protection and it causes catastrophic humanitarian issues.
Speaker 2: Just like for the numbers, Like in terms of patriots,
Speaker 2: we started off with twenty four hundred in the region,
Speaker 2: we're down to eight hundred. FAD missiles we had four
Speaker 2: to fifty, we're down to two fifty, so we have
Speaker 2: a thousand, a little bit more than a thout. We're
Speaker 2: gonna start using SM six is from the Navy, like
Speaker 2: more eight million dollars six million dollar interceptors to knock
Speaker 2: down these fifty thousand dollars drones. Like how is that
Speaker 2: cost effective? Forget about the fact that people are fucking
Speaker 2: dying obviously, Like that's the first and foremost we should
Speaker 2: think of that, But how does that make sense on
Speaker 2: our end? Especially like we spoke about it last week
Speaker 2: or a week before, Like how many patriots can we
Speaker 2: actually build a year? We can't resupply what we have,
Speaker 2: not not in this quick a timeframe. So like we're
Speaker 2: gonna it's this the ice creams running out? Well, what
Speaker 2: happens when it is no more?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: The other problem is that Iran is not just a
Speaker 1: static adversary. They're adapting and learning from how we are
Speaker 1: employing our air defense systems and the Hebar Chakhan, which
Speaker 1: are Shakastan. It means like Habar destroyer. Habar is a
Speaker 1: place that there was some Arab Jews during Mohammad's time.
Speaker 1: Mohammad ran them out, and they've named currently this missile
Speaker 1: after that episode from the Quran, and this is what
Speaker 1: they're using to attack Israel, Jordan and some further targets.
Speaker 1: It's a medium range ballistic missile and it's very advanced
Speaker 1: because it's able to actually adjust itself as it comes
Speaker 1: down on its lower trajectory. And they've actually noticed how
Speaker 1: our air defenses work and they've adjusted that adjuster to
Speaker 1: better work inside of our air defense envelope, so they're
Speaker 1: able to actually overcome it. And that's actually the weapon
Speaker 1: they used in Jordan a few weeks ago, not the
Speaker 1: most recent one now that was intercepted, but before that
Speaker 1: that actually did strike.
Speaker 4: And kill Americans.
Speaker 1: I saw some people saying like oh, you know, these
Speaker 1: these targets have been on the map for many years,
Speaker 1: that's on Google Maps. It's like, yeah, but you don't
Speaker 1: know where the actual people are at that moment. But
Speaker 1: if you're using cigant and you're using adwear exploitation, which
Speaker 1: is what they actually used to strike some Americans elsewhere
Speaker 1: in the Gulf, they're using that to try and figure
Speaker 1: out the ten digent grid for where to actually strike
Speaker 1: and kill Americans. And they're doing it really well, and
Speaker 1: they're learning each time how to do it better. And
Speaker 1: it's it's dangerous for us to view them as a
Speaker 1: static adversary that's just sitting there launching ballistic missiles, which
Speaker 1: is part of what they are doing. But they're doing
Speaker 1: it carefully and thoughtfully each time in a way that
Speaker 1: they're trying to improve casualties and harm toward Americans. And
Speaker 1: I think that's something that we shouldn't forget to.
Speaker 2: Like, isn't this stuff we study about asymmetric warfare? Right
Speaker 2: Like it seems like they are winning in that right
Speaker 2: now by a lot. Because if we're spending four million
Speaker 2: bucks for a Patriot missile on a fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: jahedrone the cost benefit analysis isn't there exactly, It doesn't
Speaker 2: really make sense. I'd love to know if, like where
Speaker 2: are we obviously it's probably classified, Like where are we
Speaker 2: with a lower cost interceptor system that is actually actually
Speaker 2: makes sense in this scenario or most scenarios.
Speaker 6: So how there's there's all kinds of counter UAS systems
Speaker 6: and things that are being developed and all sorts of
Speaker 6: different technologies, like it's a huge endeavor, but like this
Speaker 6: is like the basic problem that the US military has
Speaker 6: had since nine to eleven is that we were built
Speaker 6: to have these big slugfests with the Russians and then
Speaker 6: we end up fighting counterinsurgencies or you know, another state
Speaker 6: actor like a Ran that you know, uses asymmetric tactics,
Speaker 6: and we have this bespoke military gear that costs billions
Speaker 6: of dollars that's countering as you point out, you know,
Speaker 6: a drone that costs you know, ten thousand dollars, And
Speaker 6: so the ROI just doesn't really make sense.
Speaker 5: Over the long run. You know, in approach conflict.
Speaker 2: There's like, aren't weren't patriots designed to shoot down fucking
Speaker 2: megs and soukhoys And no, patriots.
Speaker 5: Were designed to shoot down like ballistic missiles.
Speaker 2: Or other ballistics. Okay, but in these ballistic missiles are
Speaker 2: like expensive, so most likely they're going to be like
Speaker 2: dollar for dollar at least close to it.
Speaker 3: That's why the equation used to work. Right, And we
Speaker 3: have like so, I mean, folks that follow the show,
Speaker 3: we have Lobo as a training facility, channing testing facility
Speaker 3: to Montana. I know that the DoD because they have
Speaker 3: a hub at Montana State University and they're working with us,
Speaker 3: are basically looking for companies that claim they can do
Speaker 3: this and testing them like this has become like the
Speaker 3: Manhattan Project I think of today is what Jack is
Speaker 3: just talking about, Like, we got to figure this out
Speaker 3: fast because this isn't going to work. The current basically
Speaker 3: dynamic is not acceptable. So I will at least hear
Speaker 3: about it because we're not we're not a company that
Speaker 3: does this stuff, but we're a company that hosts the testing.
Speaker 3: Hopefully it happens really quick. But I throw it back
Speaker 3: to you guys, I mean we know the iron beams
Speaker 3: in operation, though, right is it? How's it if you know?
Speaker 3: If you don't, sorry for asking, how's it being rolled out?
Speaker 3: Is it being successful? Is it the kind of what
Speaker 3: we hoped that you could use a relatively inexpensive defensive
Speaker 3: system to shoot down even in you know, more expensive
Speaker 3: incoming threats, and are we exploiting it? It is a
Speaker 3: US version of what are we doing to maximize it?
Speaker 1: The thing with air defense is is if you look
Speaker 1: at usually in the military, you'll see a chart that
Speaker 1: has different air defense intercept points at which which tool
Speaker 1: can intercept which air defense item at which altitude and
Speaker 1: which speed. And the problem with iron dome and iron
Speaker 1: beam is that they actually are designed for a very
Speaker 1: narrow intercept envelope different Not only that, but it has
Speaker 1: to be coming at a specific trajectory. So for example,
Speaker 1: if you have a weapon that is too fast like
Speaker 1: a hypersonic missile, it won't even detect it. Or if
Speaker 1: you have a weapon that's too low and slow, it
Speaker 1: also won't detect it because the radar cross section doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense to it as far as what is an
Speaker 1: adversary item and what is not, so it can actually
Speaker 1: target specific like kind.
Speaker 4: Of pie piece, right, So you need other tools.
Speaker 1: That's why the THAD is important. That's why the Patriot
Speaker 1: is important, and actually Patriot and iron dome work well
Speaker 1: together because they covered very different sections of the air
Speaker 1: intercept space. Without getting too technical about it, but if
Speaker 1: you know, people can just look it up online. There
Speaker 1: are these graphs that show you you need like five
Speaker 1: minimum different types of air defense systems to actually cover
Speaker 1: like eighty or ninety percent of the sky. That still
Speaker 1: leaves a ten percent gap. And that's not even counting
Speaker 1: for asymmetric uses of these weapons and new tools that
Speaker 1: are used in different ways than they were initially expected.
Speaker 1: For example, the anti ship missile that the Huthis have,
Speaker 1: that's a direct fire weapon that's supposed to go from
Speaker 1: a launch pad on the Earth to a ship that's
Speaker 1: not just designed to be an air weapon coming down
Speaker 1: right right, but the Hoothies are using it as that.
Speaker 1: So that's something to think about when when these tools
Speaker 1: are designed, they're designed for specific weapons at specific times,
Speaker 1: nultitudes and so on. So it's a concern that we
Speaker 1: just can't cover the sky enough.
Speaker 4: And that's true. I mean even with a sea ram.
Speaker 1: If you've seen video of sea RAM, it's very good
Speaker 1: at shooting stuff down, but doesn't shoot everything down, and
Speaker 1: you don't have an unlimited supply of munitions there on
Speaker 1: the ground. Maybe you've got stuff in theater, but if
Speaker 1: the enemy knows what your actual saturation point is based
Speaker 1: on their testing of your air defenses, they can figure
Speaker 1: out that, hey, we can actually oversaturate you. And Iran
Speaker 1: did that when they attacked Israel a little while back.
Speaker 1: They did get weapons inside and hit the ground, hit
Speaker 1: targets because it was a saturated air defense environment.
Speaker 2: Jack, if you're a journalist, give me a ask a question.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, I'm not to be like unhelpful or unconstructive,
Speaker 6: but like, we've done certain things here in this campaign
Speaker 6: against Iran that not be taken back or undone, and
Speaker 6: I feel like we have kind of run ourselves down
Speaker 6: into a cold de sac from a policy perspective, and
Speaker 6: it's an imperfect example, but you know, Vladimir Putin did
Speaker 6: the same thing in Ukraine. He ran his country down
Speaker 6: into this kind of cold de sac that he can't
Speaker 6: return from. And you know, Nick pointed out, you know,
Speaker 6: maybe we have to take some eat some humble pie
Speaker 6: on this one. But you know, then there are personalities
Speaker 6: involved in all of this, and this administration doesn't particularly
Speaker 6: do humble very well.
Speaker 5: So I have you know, I wish I had answers.
Speaker 6: I wish I could like give you some sort of
Speaker 6: prognosis of like where all this is heading. But unfortunately,
Speaker 6: I suspect it's a stalemate that's probably going to run
Speaker 6: through the rest of this administration and the next guy
Speaker 6: is going to have to figure.
Speaker 5: It out, come to some sort of peace treaty or something.
Speaker 3: That's probably the case. And you know, and I agree, like,
Speaker 3: this isn't about just throwing mud, right, Like it's easy
Speaker 3: to you know, any war, to just throw a mud.
Speaker 3: It's it's super easy. So it is about at least
Speaker 3: I think our discussion always is about how to advance
Speaker 3: us interest, So it isn't It isn't just point poking
Speaker 3: somebody in the in the eye. But it's really difficult
Speaker 3: to see a way out of this that's not just
Speaker 3: a stalemate, Like escalation doesn't seem to be just if
Speaker 3: you listen to the reporting on the assessment an option
Speaker 3: even though we might do it so but we can't
Speaker 3: accept failure, like we're not.
Speaker 6: I don't think right well, your point about the strait
Speaker 6: of her muse and the the highly enriched uranium is correct,
Speaker 6: Like I don't think we can accept that as a
Speaker 6: as a country to just like leave leave things as
Speaker 6: they are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so maybe the other next administration, be it
Speaker 3: you know, Republican or Democrat, gets a new crack at this.
Speaker 3: But that's a long time to wait at the current circumstances.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's time for the America and our
Speaker 2: whoever's following this to kind of under like kind of
Speaker 2: come to the come to the realization that we've broken
Speaker 2: it kind of beyond repair. And you know, I would argue,
Speaker 2: are there's some people that would argue because it's arguable
Speaker 2: for sure that like is even being involved in this
Speaker 2: thing with Iran right now in America's interests thankfully, you know,
Speaker 2: we live here, so our gas prices are higher, but
Speaker 2: it's not like it's not to the point of like
Speaker 2: what you see is going on in Europe and everywhere
Speaker 2: and uh Southeast Asia, but you know it does affect
Speaker 2: our economy in some sort of way.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And would it makes sense to like disengage, I'm not
Speaker 2: saying completely, you know, still be around to whenever ices
Speaker 2: pops their head out to fucking chop it off.
Speaker 3: But but what would that do though, like they're still
Speaker 3: con was straight on home mooz.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's gonna be the new reality on the ground.
Speaker 2: I mean, unfortunately, like I hate to admit it, but uh,
Speaker 2: you know, we knew this was going in like for
Speaker 2: thirty forty years, that this is what likely would happen
Speaker 2: if we attacked Iran, and it's happened pretty much, probably
Speaker 2: to the book. Maybe maybe a little bit more like
Speaker 2: people were a little bit more surprised that they were
Speaker 2: attacking our bases and our allies in the region as much.
Speaker 2: But we knew Horrmuz was on the table. That's why
Speaker 2: George W. Bush, when he probably had the most political
Speaker 2: capital ever when he went into Iraq, those that early
Speaker 2: first six months maybe could have pushed it. But that's
Speaker 2: why no other administration ever did that, like attacked Iran,
Speaker 2: because they knew the fallout would be rough and even
Speaker 2: it I would argue it would have been rougher for
Speaker 2: them to go in because we weren't so energy independent
Speaker 2: at that time, but now we relatively pretty much are,
Speaker 2: even though it's a global market and everything like that.
Speaker 2: But uh, yeah, I think unfortunately, I mean I don't
Speaker 2: want to say, like, you know, Iran's gonna win this one, but.
Speaker 3: They probably will go total nuclear.
Speaker 2: Weapon right of course mentioned that, Yeah, we engage. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if you read John's incredible book A Ranch Shadow Weapons,
Speaker 2: their number one thing is not exporting revolution. It's not
Speaker 2: any of that. It's regime security. And the ultimate regime
Speaker 2: security is having you known a dozen nukes. No one's
Speaker 2: gonna say shit to you ever again. You see North Korea.
Speaker 2: The guy's a fucking lunatic.
Speaker 6: There's something I would like to ask you guys about
Speaker 6: that I've read and heard. But you know, it's a
Speaker 6: fascinating kind of thing to think about and to look
Speaker 6: at because it's not something that they really it's not
Speaker 6: a theory that they teach in college. This idea that
Speaker 6: the administration is waging this war in a manner to
Speaker 6: I guess you could say game the markets. That they're
Speaker 6: doing these like weekend bombing campaigns when the stock exchange
Speaker 6: is shut down and then calling them off. And I
Speaker 6: mean that's do you do you guys feel that that's true,
Speaker 6: that that's the approach that they're taking. And if so,
Speaker 6: I mean, how does that impact our warf I mean,
Speaker 6: I don't think we've ever fought a war quite like
Speaker 6: that before.
Speaker 1: I think one thing to recognize is that even if
Speaker 1: it whether it's true or not that they're doing this
Speaker 1: consciously to exploit the market, the market is an efficient
Speaker 1: organism and it's going to adapt in ways that make
Speaker 1: the most benefit out of the situation. So every time
Speaker 1: that this occurs, the market as a whole general information
Speaker 1: collective adapts to the situation and there are new benefits
Speaker 1: to be created and extracted from that behavior, like, for example,
Speaker 1: this weekend, the announcement that the attacks will happen, and
Speaker 1: then the de escalation. If you look at after hours trading,
Speaker 1: you can see the market responding to this as an organism,
Speaker 1: which is many many people's different decisions, including institutional investors
Speaker 1: and you know, quote unquote dumb money, which is everybody else,
Speaker 1: retail investors, all reacting to this situation in a way
Speaker 1: that creates value for some people to extract the value. So,
Speaker 1: whether it's intentional or not, there are people that are
Speaker 1: looking at this and saying, how can I the most
Speaker 1: out of this situation, And there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people doing that. Some of them are inside the administration,
Speaker 1: like the teleprompter guy that just got outed for making
Speaker 1: you know, insider trades based on things that he saw
Speaker 1: on the teleprompter that Trump was about to read minutes later. Right, So,
Speaker 1: there are actors out there, whether it's intentional as a
Speaker 1: policy or not, who are saying, hey, this is my
Speaker 1: shot to make some money, and that is insider information.
Speaker 1: And it's very difficult to go after when the Consumer
Speaker 1: Financial Protection Bureau and the CFTC are got regulatory capture
Speaker 1: with the current you know way of comming about the economy.
Speaker 2: John, You're getting me fucking crazy saying these things. Right now,
Speaker 2: you said, just consuit, don't get the don't get the
Speaker 2: fucking lefty out on you, because they fucking gutted that
Speaker 2: fucking agency.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, like Polymarket and Kelshi can't really be regulated
Speaker 1: very well because those like CFTC and CFPB and FTC,
Speaker 1: first of all, they can't figure out who's the one
Speaker 1: that's supposed to regulate insider training on those markets.
Speaker 4: Right, They're like they're infighting with each other about that.
Speaker 1: And there's also not a lot of political will to
Speaker 1: answer the question.
Speaker 2: So and frankly, like a ton of a dozen states
Speaker 2: or more have filed fucking seasons assist lawsuits against Calchia
Speaker 2: and poly Market the Better Exchanges because like DraftKings and
Speaker 2: and fan duel. They've gone through the state legislator to
Speaker 2: get approved for for to operate in that state in
Speaker 2: Calshi and poly market just because it's a prediction market.
Speaker 2: Bullshit is uh can do it anywhere federally, right, So
Speaker 2: they a lot of states file seasoned desists or file charges,
Speaker 2: and the DOJ is actually fighting on the side of
Speaker 2: Calchi and poly market against the states, Like it's fucking crazy.
Speaker 2: It makes no sense. John got me triggered. This is
Speaker 2: John's fault. Everybody and also happens to be a strategic
Speaker 2: advisor or whatever. Somebody like on the board getting paid
Speaker 2: from this is Donald Trump Junior. Yeah, so okay, that's it.
Speaker 2: That's my lib rant for the week.
Speaker 3: When does it the statements, whether their manipulation or not,
Speaker 3: just simply not work because they're they're not on the market.
Speaker 2: It's a good.
Speaker 3: Market on an energy market, right because yeah, at least
Speaker 3: and I'm not an financial guye, but like, if you're
Speaker 3: looking for futures on the energy market, you actually need
Speaker 3: to be accurate, right, Like you can't just take a
Speaker 3: false statement that's designed to manipulate you and go with it.
Speaker 3: Is my question.
Speaker 2: Well, I think, I think, like for the insiders most likely,
Speaker 2: like the last week, there was a short position that
Speaker 2: was taken up on oil right right before the thirteen
Speaker 2: days of bombing were going on, and we stopped, and
Speaker 2: like somebody knew obviously that we were going to stop
Speaker 2: at a certain time, they took out a position and
Speaker 2: oil went up or dropped, or I think it dropped
Speaker 2: seven percent. So in that's seven percent, somebody made a
Speaker 2: fuck ton of money, especially if your BET's big enough.
Speaker 1: The other thing is these oil futures that you mentioned. Typically,
Speaker 1: if you compare oil futures and the bond market, there
Speaker 1: should be some correlation between how people think about the
Speaker 1: future for bond returns, because bond returns are based on
Speaker 1: future US government decisions and futures which are private decisions
Speaker 1: but also react to public choices that you know, the
Speaker 1: US foreign policy makes, and they're divergent in a way
Speaker 1: that is unusual right now, and they're actually converging back again.
Speaker 1: In other words, the market is ignoring what the government
Speaker 1: is saying to some degree and thinking it's less dangerous
Speaker 1: than it sounds, which is interesting. It's like you're saying
Speaker 1: it means, it means that the you know, the economy
Speaker 1: largely is basically adapting to this rhetoric and saying it's
Speaker 1: not as bad as it sounds, so we can just
Speaker 1: kind of continue on as usual. And if you look
Speaker 1: at the harmonics of the market of the futures reactions
Speaker 1: to all the statements that have been said since February
Speaker 1: twenty eighth, there's a dramatic decline in the reaction to
Speaker 1: those statements as time goes on.
Speaker 2: Can you possibly make the statement right, like you know,
Speaker 2: crying wolf, like, yeah, you can only do it so
Speaker 2: many times before like the market really like jumps or
Speaker 2: gold goes up or down.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like Kim Jong un back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six when they first or Kim Jong uh yeah, no,
Speaker 1: Kim Jong John Iel, sorry, Kim Jong Eel when he
Speaker 1: first in two thousand and six successfully launched a nuclear
Speaker 1: weapon test.
Speaker 4: Huge market reaction to that.
Speaker 1: But as time went on and the Kim family made
Speaker 1: more and more statements about nukes, there was less and
Speaker 1: less reaction globally in the markets to those statements because
Speaker 1: we realized that, well, they're probably not going to lauch
Speaker 1: nukes at anybody. It's just testing and its rhetoric, and
Speaker 1: it kind of dramatically declined. Even during Trump one, when
Speaker 1: there was a lot of changes in our relationship with
Speaker 1: North Korea that were being expressed, the markets still kind
Speaker 1: of put less interest in that, and you saw slower
Speaker 1: reactions to those statements, both positive and negative statements.
Speaker 2: Wow, so what happens next? Guys? You guys are the
Speaker 2: smart guys. Tell me Jack, you first.
Speaker 6: Didn't I already say, I can't really predict what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: I didn't hear that part.
Speaker 3: It's hard to predict predicting that we on ketch you right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I know. I don't even know how to get on
Speaker 3: that thing.
Speaker 2: Well it's quite easy now, you could do it anywhere.
Speaker 2: And that's what I think.
Speaker 3: Anybody listens to us and then tries to predict Kelty, I.
Speaker 2: Mean they should listen to John. He's predicted some stuff.
Speaker 2: I should have I should have bet some stuff John
Speaker 2: was saying. I mean, he met he called it. But
Speaker 2: like I think, as when maybe we were leading up
Speaker 2: to it, not before the bomb started dropping, Like the
Speaker 2: mosaic thing's gonna happen, I Orgy, he's gonna take control. Uh,
Speaker 2: and there's not going to really be much central control
Speaker 2: over anything. Really, It's gonna be commanders in the field
Speaker 2: deciding what to do when they want to do it.
Speaker 2: He called that, you know, you called it on the
Speaker 2: fucking button. I don't know how you could have made
Speaker 2: money on that. Or we did text a little bit
Speaker 2: while I was going on who was going to be
Speaker 2: the next whoever? And you called it and I should
Speaker 2: have fucking bet it, and I didn't.
Speaker 1: I was also in an interview with somebody else and
Speaker 1: they asked me two days before the conflict started, They're like,
Speaker 1: what do you think is happening? Ut I think we're
Speaker 1: gonna go to Warren two days and we did.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, We're gonna start charging for predictions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like to subscribe, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, get rich on KLSHI and you know from our predictions?
Speaker 2: All right quick before we get out of here? Are
Speaker 2: we just going to keep doing this over and over
Speaker 2: again for the next two years?
Speaker 3: That's where it's going. To Jack's point, I think that's
Speaker 3: where it's going. I mean, there's I don't think we
Speaker 3: can accept failure. And if there's a way to come
Speaker 3: up with a success, I hope we find it. But
Speaker 3: it's very difficult to see from here.
Speaker 1: I think inertia is a good word to use to
Speaker 1: describe what we see happening right now, because if there
Speaker 1: isn't a change in policy, if it's the same policy
Speaker 1: just amplified or reduced, it's it's the inertia of the
Speaker 1: operation continues moving in the same kind of general direction,
Speaker 1: which is the hardening of Iran's regime, the weakening of
Speaker 1: US influence in the region, the growth of Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: as a power regionally, the decline of Israel as a
Speaker 1: power in the region. And one thing on the horizon
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about is the growth of Turkey also
Speaker 1: in the region, because Turkey has always had the dream
Speaker 1: of returning to the Ottoman control over these these places
Speaker 1: between today's Turkey all the way down to Yemen. They
Speaker 1: have always wanted that back. Airdowan thinks that he's out
Speaker 1: of Turk too, and you're going to see that expansion
Speaker 1: as well, especially visa VI or Israel. As Israel loses
Speaker 1: power in the region, Turkey will fill the vacuum, not
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia. It's mostly going to be Turkey. So I
Speaker 1: think we should look out for that, especially in Syria,
Speaker 1: Jolani was not put there by accident. That was heavily
Speaker 1: supported by Turkey, right, Yeah, and you're going to see
Speaker 1: that with the Kurds across North Iraq and also in Syria,
Speaker 1: the way the Kurds have shifted position of Visa v.
Speaker 4: Turkey.
Speaker 1: These are things that off you know, Iran takes our attention,
Speaker 1: but it's important to have the context of what's around
Speaker 1: Iran and what comes the day after whatever, whether that's
Speaker 1: a treaty or whatever it is. But the day after
Speaker 1: that thing happens, what's next. You know, nobody just like
Speaker 1: stops moving. It's like musical chairs. They're going to continue
Speaker 1: rotating around, and it's important to keep focus on what
Speaker 1: are the things next?
Speaker 2: Boys pleasure as always, I want everyone to do us
Speaker 2: a favor, like subscribe if you're following us, if you're
Speaker 2: listening on on audio, you can subscribe, and like they're
Speaker 2: Jack Murphy's got a new book out called The Most
Speaker 2: Dangerous Man. It's an incredible book that links in the
Speaker 2: description of course John's books The Theory of a Regular
Speaker 2: War and the Ran Shadow Weapons incredible. Those links are
Speaker 2: in the description. We're waiting for Mixed Memoir to come out.
Speaker 2: I'm excited about that. Make the white Fish Security Summit, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I would love it. Till all fucking inside GB inside
Speaker 2: Ground Ranks tell us all Man the white Fish Security Summit.
Speaker 2: Check that out. That's happening end of February next year,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty seven, and his new podcast Pumping the Portrait
Speaker 2: Plied Stoicism. All those links are in the description and
Speaker 2: check us out on Patreon, Patreon dot com slash the
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