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Oil Spikes as Middle East War All But Halts Hormuz Ship Strait · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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  Speaker 2: I want to talk more about the oil markets and
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  Speaker 2: the impact that the Iran attack might have on them
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  Speaker 2: with Ellen Wall, President of Transversal Consulting. So, Ellen, I
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  Speaker 2: want to just start with OPEC plus because they already
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  Speaker 2: responded pretty quickly by increasing quote as slightly not a
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  Speaker 2: major output hike. But is this really more symbolic than
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  Speaker 2: anything else.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that what we saw from the output
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  Speaker 3: hike and the swiftness with which they did this was
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  Speaker 3: really a signal to the market that should there be
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  Speaker 3: any kind of major disruptions, that OPEK is absolutely willing
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  Speaker 3: to hike production very swiftly to accommodate that. Now, obviously
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  Speaker 3: the big question is, well, if the major oil producers
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  Speaker 3: here Saudi Arabia, you know, Iraq, Kuwait, the UAE, you know,
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  Speaker 3: if they're experiencing any kind of disruptions to both either
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  Speaker 3: their oil infrastructure or just the ability to get that
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  Speaker 3: oil out of out of the Middle East, that may
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  Speaker 3: not be all that helpful. And we're really going to
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  Speaker 3: see reliance on places like a Kazakhstan, for example, to
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  Speaker 3: increase output.
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  Speaker 4: How to producers like Saudi Arabia and the UAE factor
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  Speaker 4: into market stability in this scenario.
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  Speaker 3: That would say they're they're really key right now. What's
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  Speaker 3: interesting is that both the EUAE and Saudi Arabia don't
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  Speaker 3: rely one hundred percent on the Persian Gulf to get
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  Speaker 3: their oil out Kuwait most of Iraq, and they are
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  Speaker 3: entirely almost entirely reliant really on the Straight of Horn Moves.
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  Speaker 3: Sada Arabia does have a way to get oil out
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  Speaker 3: through the Red Sea, and the UA has pipelines that
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  Speaker 3: go around the Strait of hornm Moves, but still a
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  Speaker 3: lot of their oil is still set up and oil
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  Speaker 3: products as well to go out through the Strait of
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  Speaker 3: Horror Moves. And we've seen, as you mentioned, that tanker
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  Speaker 3: rates are sky high, so you know, even if there
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  Speaker 3: is no you know, direct threat from Iran, it's still
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  Speaker 3: too expensive to send a tanker through the street either
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  Speaker 3: to pick up oil or to get it out. And
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  Speaker 3: so this is really causing a standstill that if it
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  Speaker 3: continues for you know, a week or even two, could
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  Speaker 3: really start to cause major problems.
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  Speaker 5: Ellen.
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  Speaker 2: If there is a winner in all of this, you
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  Speaker 2: say that would be Russia at least in the short term, right,
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  Speaker 2: because I guess It's oil would be able to flow
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  Speaker 2: unobstructed to its biggest oil consumer, which is China exactly.
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  Speaker 3: China is really you know, In has the biggest problem
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  Speaker 3: with oil not being able to get out of the
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  Speaker 3: Persian Golf because it consumes a huge amount from there,
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  Speaker 3: But it also consumes a large amount of Russian oil,
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  Speaker 3: and he can get that oil without having to go
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  Speaker 3: through the Persian Gulf. So I would not be surprised
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  Speaker 3: if this continues to see China increasing its imports from
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  Speaker 3: Russia even more, and as oil prices go up, Putin
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  Speaker 3: can also charge more for his oil. So he is
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  Speaker 3: definitely looking at this as you know, there's more money
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  Speaker 3: in his pocketbook now and he's potentially got another more
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  Speaker 3: more space to sell his oil to the customers that
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  Speaker 3: will buy it. Another question is will India, which recently
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  Speaker 3: committed to stop buying Russian oil, feel that it needs
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  Speaker 3: to go back to purchasing Russian oil to offset the
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  Speaker 3: losses that it's suffering because it can't get oil from
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  Speaker 3: the Persian golf.
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  Speaker 4: What are some key potential red flags that you'd be
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  Speaker 4: watching in the coming weeks in terms of oil markets.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the biggest issue I think we're we're
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  Speaker 3: looking for right now, I think spikes in natural gas
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  Speaker 3: prices in Europe and also in Japan and in other
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  Speaker 3: Asian countries. Katar has shut down it's LNG plants and
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  Speaker 3: they're major supplier to Asia, and so you know they're
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  Speaker 3: really we're going to be looking for big spikes there.
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  Speaker 3: And then as well, we're talking not just crude oil,
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  Speaker 3: but also products are major major things that are going
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  Speaker 3: through the Strait of Horn moves, and so it would
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  Speaker 3: be very important to keep an eye on that, particularly Asia, China, Japan,
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  Speaker 3: South Korea. These are all countries that get huge amounts
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  Speaker 3: of these vital products from the Middle East, and so
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  Speaker 3: I'd keep be keeping a very close eye on what
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  Speaker 3: China is doing. I know that they recently started talking
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  Speaker 3: to the Iranians. It will be interesting to see if
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  Speaker 3: they try to bring their economic leverage to push the
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  Speaker 3: Iranians to kind of bring this to a swifter resolution.
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  Speaker 5: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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  Speaker 2: We did hear earlier though, Nora from the Defense Secretary,
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  Speaker 2: from the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff about this operation
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  Speaker 2: Operation Epic Fury, Pete Hegseth, a Defense secretary, saying that
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  Speaker 2: aren had a gun to our head as he defended
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  Speaker 2: this attack right.
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  Speaker 4: And there was also some discussion about the fact that
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  Speaker 4: heg Seth's saying that he didn't want to say too
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  Speaker 4: much in terms of granularities as to not expose some
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  Speaker 4: of their plans to quote the enemy. So that's also
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  Speaker 4: been something that we are keeping an eye on.
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  Speaker 5: But to talk about.
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  Speaker 4: This and more, we're joined by doctor Ario Cohen, Senior
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  Speaker 4: Fellow at the Atlantic Council. There's been a lot of
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  Speaker 4: developments happening, a lot of things that happened during weekend,
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  Speaker 4: and we're really seeing a lot of it's spilling into today.
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  Speaker 4: On Monday, talk to us about what you're watching and
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  Speaker 4: what your main takeaways are of all these geopolitical tensions.
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  Speaker 6: The first takeaway is how radically the character of war
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  Speaker 6: has changed. If you think about World War one, World
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  Speaker 6: War two, even Vietnam warring parties did not go to
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  Speaker 6: take out the leadership of the opposing country on the
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  Speaker 6: first day. We did, and we did it. Secondly, the
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  Speaker 6: two things I'm watching very carefully is whether or not
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  Speaker 6: the US Navy and the allies, including the Arab countries
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  Speaker 6: right in the Gulf, can secure the shipment of oil
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  Speaker 6: through the state of horror moves. For now, for the
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  Speaker 6: first couple of days, the shipment dropped, the oil prices
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  Speaker 6: went to eighty. Our economy can live with oil at eighty.
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  Speaker 6: It lived with oil at much higher prices. However, if
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  Speaker 6: it goes on for weeks and months, that's a different story.
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  Speaker 6: Because percent of global oil and good amount of energy
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  Speaker 6: lique financial gas ship through the Strait Strait of Hormus.
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  Speaker 6: It's an errowstraate. It's something like two miles or something
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  Speaker 6: like that. Now, luckily there's a lot of product. There
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  Speaker 6: is oil that Saudi Arabia can ship to the red
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  Speaker 6: s Now. There's a problem with the Red Sea because
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  Speaker 6: of the hoofis and who thys are supported and equipped
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  Speaker 6: and trained by Iran. So you see the visious circle here.
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  Speaker 6: So the strategic goal is to enact enough damage to
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  Speaker 6: the ruling regime in Iran, so the transition to a
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  Speaker 6: non Islamist regime, non IRGC dominated regime starts to happen.
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  Speaker 6: And I think it's too early to tell whether or
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  Speaker 6: not this is going to happen, how fast, and how
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  Speaker 6: messy it's going to be. Iran is messy historically and
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  Speaker 6: probably is going to be messy now. And finally, I'm
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  Speaker 6: watching the amount of m the US and the Israelis
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  Speaker 6: a shooting, be it missile defense, be it rockets, offensive rockets, bombs,
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  Speaker 6: et cetera. Because all this equipment is very expensive. This
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  Speaker 6: is why folks are investing in weapons companies and the Pentagon.
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  Speaker 6: The US needs a supply, strategic supply of these weapon
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  Speaker 6: systems in Europe, in the Pacific, just in case. And
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  Speaker 6: this is a three theater circus three circus show that
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  Speaker 6: we're watching because a certain amount of these weapons systems
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  Speaker 6: need to be preserved for Europe and for the Pacific.
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  Speaker 2: And doctor Cohen one we look at what happens now,
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  Speaker 2: what happens next?
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  Speaker 6: Right?
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  Speaker 2: Who will what will the new regime and Aroan look like?
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  Speaker 2: Even President Trump said that his picks for the next
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  Speaker 2: leader has been killed. So what what can we expect
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  Speaker 2: from the new regime and will it be any better
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  Speaker 2: and friendlier to UH to global relations than the prior regime.
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  Speaker 6: The main question is whether I r GC, the Iranian
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  Speaker 6: Revolutionary Guard Corps are going to stay in power. This
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  Speaker 6: is a combination of the military, elite, military and secret police,
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  Speaker 6: so imagine the SS and baffin assess or not the
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  Speaker 6: Germany of KGB and internal security troops in the Soviet Union.
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  Speaker 6: It is a characteristic of a totalitarian state where you
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  Speaker 6: have a merger of internal security and the military. UH,
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  Speaker 6: the regular military. The Artesh has not stepped in yet.
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  Speaker 5: And I believe that.
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  Speaker 6: The US and Israel are talking to folks inside Iran.
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  Speaker 6: Be It supporters of the Shah. We heard chance for
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  Speaker 6: Reza Shah path Levi, hair of the throne of the
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  Speaker 6: son of the last Shaw, be It reformers, So there
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  Speaker 6: are a lot of people. How these people can sit
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  Speaker 6: together and rule Iran, That's a big question. What the
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  Speaker 6: elites the urban folks, that educator folks all repudiated the
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  Speaker 6: current theocratic dictatorship that killed thirty thousand of their own people.
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  Speaker 5: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us Live
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  Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
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• 10:55
  Speaker 4: But continuing on in this conversation, we'd like to talk
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  Speaker 4: with Wayne Sanders. He's a Bloomberg Intelligence senior defense weapons analysts.
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  Speaker 4: I've been keeping an eyewane on some of the stocks moving,
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  Speaker 4: at least in terms of some of the US defense names,
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  Speaker 4: and we're seeing them rallying on the day, not too
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  Speaker 4: much of a surprise. What's your takeaway from the developments
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  Speaker 4: here and as this relates to weaponry more broadly.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely, Thank you so much for having me on.
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  Speaker 7: We put on some research over the weekend. One of
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  Speaker 7: the biggest things that we've noticed right US defense primes
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  Speaker 7: like Lockheed RTX in Northrope they're really at the center
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  Speaker 7: of the air missile defense and strike capabilities that are
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  Speaker 7: underscored by the US Israel campaign against Iran right now,
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  Speaker 7: and so it's being able to show that crude systems,
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  Speaker 7: piloted systems, shooting piloted systems continue to be at the
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  Speaker 7: forefront of this right F twenty two's F sixteen's F
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  Speaker 7: fifteen Strike Eagle, in the F thirty five, obviously for
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  Speaker 7: air dominance, all of these have played a really critical
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  Speaker 7: role in here. It starts to show that the work
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  Speaker 7: into stealth technology continues to be one of the key
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  Speaker 7: pieces that's going to continue to be pressed. They're proving,
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  Speaker 7: they're proving their nature, they're proving their importance to it,
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  Speaker 7: and then you're also seeing that from a naval power,
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  Speaker 7: it ends up continuing to be a very powerful button
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  Speaker 7: for the president to use to be able to bring
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  Speaker 7: out these these these strike the carrier strike groups, excuse
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  Speaker 7: me to go out there, aircraft carriers along with these
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  Speaker 7: guided missile destroyers to be able to provide not only
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  Speaker 7: a level of air defense, but then also air superiority
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  Speaker 7: as well as long range strike capability.
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  Speaker 2: And Wayne this morning we got word from the US
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  Speaker 2: that US jets were shot down over Kuwait in apparent
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  Speaker 2: friendly fire. In a friendly fire incident. Thankfully, the crew
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  Speaker 2: that were in those jets were able to jettison out
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  Speaker 2: of them and last we heard their unstable condition at
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  Speaker 2: a hospital. But can you tell us more about those
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  Speaker 2: jets and what was destroyed there?
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, when you look at some of the F fifteen
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  Speaker 7: capabilities and all that, right, air defense is normally right,
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  Speaker 7: they come as different pieces. You have a radar system
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  Speaker 7: that's actually used specifically to identify the signal itself. Then
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  Speaker 7: you have to be able to put it together with
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  Speaker 7: an interceptor that's going to be able to shoot it down.
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  Speaker 7: And so what happened in some of these is I
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  Speaker 7: believe that the radars themselves, when you try to differentiate
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  Speaker 7: identify friend versus foe, ends up being a key piece
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  Speaker 7: of this. Right, there are specific signatures that different aircraft
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  Speaker 7: comes on if they if you override that and you
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  Speaker 7: shoot at it anyway, it's something that can be on there.
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  Speaker 7: But this all the the pilots are safe even though
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  Speaker 7: these aircraft were affected.
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  Speaker 4: So how would you characterize Iran's current missile and drone capabilities,
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  Speaker 4: especially the ones that are being used in this war?
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, working looking through some of the US InCom data
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  Speaker 7: and all that, right, I think right now you're looking
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  Speaker 7: at Iran having below oney five hundred missiles total for
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  Speaker 7: these short range ballistic missiles and medium range ballistic missiles.
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  Speaker 7: But the bigger tell there is actually on the missile
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  Speaker 7: launchers themselves, because you're looking at somewhere between one hundred
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  Speaker 7: and one hundred and fifty missile launchers total. Doesn't do
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  Speaker 7: any good to have a missile if you can't get
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  Speaker 7: in the air. And so the US and Israel have
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  Speaker 7: been very very effective at targeting the stockpiles for the
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  Speaker 7: missiles themselves, but also the launchers that shoot them, and
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  Speaker 7: then the air defense capabilities have been very much decimated
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  Speaker 7: at this point in time, which is why you see
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  Speaker 7: so many F twenty two's, F fifteen's, F sixteens that
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  Speaker 7: are inn F thirty five that are able to fly
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  Speaker 7: somewhat unipeded in that area.
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  Speaker 5: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up here
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  Speaker 5: for this.
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  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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• 14:47
  Speaker 2: One of the big questions now is what happens next
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  Speaker 2: in the war with Iran and with regime change there.
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  Speaker 2: And Senator Mark Warner, who's a member of the Gang
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  Speaker 2: of Eight, spoke with Bloomberg this weekend on Sunday, and
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  Speaker 2: he said, but there are still questions about what comes
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  Speaker 2: next for Iran?
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  Speaker 8: Is the goal Iran's nuclear capability is it's the ballistic missiles.
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  Speaker 8: Regime change. And let me acknowledge the fact that the
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  Speaker 8: Iranian leadership, the Supreme Leader's taken out. I mean that
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  Speaker 8: is good news. I mean, this regime is awful. But
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  Speaker 8: I can tell you from the intelligence standpoint, we don't
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  Speaker 8: have great visibility about who or what comes next.
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  Speaker 2: And we're going to put that question now to our
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  Speaker 2: next guest, Edward Price, non resident senior fellow at NYU
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  Speaker 2: on Iran, joining us here in the studio. And I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I guess that really is the question, right, what comes next?
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  Speaker 2: Because what comes next could write the script for decades
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  Speaker 2: to come in the Middle East.
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  Speaker 9: I think that's correct. But there is no script, right,
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  Speaker 9: I mean, this is regime change, light laite, right, all
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  Speaker 9: with the caffeine, none of the sugar. And in planet
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  Speaker 9: we're going to go and kill the bad guy, which,
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  Speaker 9: by the way, if you give me a chance to
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  Speaker 9: large you, is a good thing. But there is no
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  Speaker 9: plan B. And so this is maybe a reaction long
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  Speaker 9: term to the war on Terror and twenty years of
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  Speaker 9: puddling around in the Middle East for no good reason.
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  Speaker 9: And I think that it's something that we as American
• 16:15
  Speaker 9: citizens should think very carefully about, because we're not spreading
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  Speaker 9: democracy so much as we are making the world safer
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  Speaker 9: for democracy.
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  Speaker 4: Well, do you want to touch on this redhead crossing
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: the Bloomberg terminal The UAE and Katar lobby allies to
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: persuade Trump to end Iran war soon. Going back to
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  Speaker 4: our conversation with Ed Price here, I wanted to talk
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  Speaker 4: about whether or not do you think that diplomacy could
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  Speaker 4: still realistically de escalate this conflict?
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  Speaker 2: No, because Trump Trump has said Iran wants to speak,
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  Speaker 2: they want to come back to the table. Do we
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  Speaker 2: believe this.
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  Speaker 9: I mean, they always want to come back to the table.
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  Speaker 9: But let's get down to brass tax. Iran has effectively
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  Speaker 9: been at war with the West for some fifty years.
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  Speaker 9: It has been undermining our society, funding terror. October the seventh,
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  Speaker 9: by the way, has Iran's fingerprints all over it. So
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  Speaker 9: they started a war that they can't finish and now
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  Speaker 9: they want to talk. I mean that's absurd.
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  Speaker 2: Earlier Defense Sebretary Pete Hegseth, in the first press conference
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  Speaker 2: we really had since the war this weekend, basically said
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  Speaker 2: when asked you know why now, he said, it's forty
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  Speaker 2: seven years of a violent regime of a belligerent Iran.
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  Speaker 2: He said, we didn't start this war, but under President Trump,
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  Speaker 2: we are finishing it. So in terms of timing, is
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  Speaker 2: this just because they were able to get the Ayatola
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  Speaker 2: and his leaders in one place at one time and
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  Speaker 2: saw opportunity.
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  Speaker 9: Yeah, and why not? Frankly, I mean, this is effectively
• 17:37
  Speaker 9: the United States fighting and winning World War three before
• 17:41
  Speaker 9: World War three needs to be fought and won. And
• 17:44
  Speaker 9: it's very uncomfortable for Western populations because we all grew
• 17:47
  Speaker 9: up on the first mover of Adolf Hitler and we
• 17:49
  Speaker 9: think that moving first is morally run somehow. But I
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  Speaker 9: would remind you your audience that international law is a
• 17:55
  Speaker 9: subfunction of Western morality. Western morality is not a subfunction
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  Speaker 9: of law. So if we've created a situation for a
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  Speaker 9: terr state to again, murder people on October seventh, unprovoked,
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  Speaker 9: and they get molded themselves and they want to talk again.
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  Speaker 9: I repeat myself, it's absurd.
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  Speaker 4: You see that there is a foot rates between using
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: our hard power today and losing our soft power, including
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  Speaker 4: the dollar standard tomorrow.
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  Speaker 9: Explain that, well, I think what we're witnessing at two funerals,
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  Speaker 9: the funeral of Iran's rule of terror, and that's a
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  Speaker 9: good thing, and then of course the funeral of the
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  Speaker 9: international rule of law, which is a mixed bag. I
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  Speaker 9: just suggested that if international law is not working to
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  Speaker 9: keep us safe, then it should be revisited. But breaking
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  Speaker 9: international law in so brazen a way also encourages our
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  Speaker 9: adversaries to do the same. And ultimately, what I mean
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  Speaker 9: about the dollar is that we live off of our
• 18:43
  Speaker 9: soft power. We have alliances. People lend us a lot
• 18:46
  Speaker 9: of money that is used to buy very nice kit
• 18:49
  Speaker 9: that we saw in the last few days being used.
• 18:51
  Speaker 9: And so ultimately, if we lose our trust, if we
• 18:53
  Speaker 9: lose our soft power, that will reflect in the amount
• 18:56
  Speaker 9: of money that people are willing to lend us.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Just looking at your note here and you say Trump
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: at home is as dangerous to our Republic, as Trump
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: abroad is as powerful for the West. Just tell us
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: more about that.
• 19:09
  Speaker 9: I mean, this is the ultimate confusion, right, So someone
• 19:11
  Speaker 9: like me, small l liberal, very very hand ringing about
• 19:15
  Speaker 9: Trump for the last decade, and I've said before that
• 19:17
  Speaker 9: I think he's encouraging forces in our country that are
• 19:20
  Speaker 9: pre seventeen seventy six. They're the sort of forces that
• 19:23
  Speaker 9: don't necessarily believe in the rule of law at home.
• 19:26
  Speaker 9: One example, if I had to say, as an immigrant
• 19:30
  Speaker 9: to this country, as a naturalized citizen, what I think
• 19:32
  Speaker 9: the United States is in its essence, I would say,
• 19:35
  Speaker 9: no secret police, and yet we have ice on the streets.
• 19:37
  Speaker 9: So there's one example of what I mean about the
• 19:39
  Speaker 9: domestic problem in the Republic. With President Trump on the
• 19:43
  Speaker 9: other hand, again, I'm confused because abroad he's kind of
• 19:46
  Speaker 9: heading it out of the ballpark right now. He's crushing
• 19:49
  Speaker 9: our enemies. He's confiscating communists, and he's taking out the
• 19:53
  Speaker 9: bad guys. So what we would really want to see,
• 19:56
  Speaker 9: I think, is something closer to the rule of law
• 19:58
  Speaker 9: at home. Even if we're going into, as I say,
• 20:01
  Speaker 9: fighting win World War II before it needs to be fought,
• 20:03
  Speaker 9: but there will be a cost to this kind of
• 20:05
  Speaker 9: delinquent behavior.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: What do you think of the potential ripple effects of this.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, we've already seen it kind of spreading in
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: terms of the golf more broadly, but I'm curious what
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: you think. Maybe the extra layers may be.
• 20:17
  Speaker 6: Well, if we do it.
• 20:18
  Speaker 9: Properly and we truly crush the Iranian regime, good things
• 20:21
  Speaker 9: will happen, right, I mean, for one, there will be
• 20:23
  Speaker 9: freedom for women in that country. They've been oppressed brutally
• 20:26
  Speaker 9: so for decades. If you're asking about second order effects
• 20:30
  Speaker 9: in the wider regime and in the wider region, I
• 20:33
  Speaker 9: should say I always imagine the Ukraine War and the
• 20:36
  Speaker 9: war with Iran is one war, right, if you just
• 20:39
  Speaker 9: flip them up on its side.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: I was going to ask about that.
• 20:41
  Speaker 9: Yeah, you can see quite clearly that it's one theater, right,
• 20:44
  Speaker 9: And you've got Culliningrad, You've got Poland and Ukraine and
• 20:48
  Speaker 9: then Iran, and they're all in a very similar area. Now,
• 20:51
  Speaker 9: why is that? Because the Russians are pushing fort and
• 20:54
  Speaker 9: in Russian history they always push forward to the sea.
• 20:57
  Speaker 9: They need warm more to ports. Maybe that will change
• 20:59
  Speaker 9: with climate chain, but that's why they're allied with it. Yeah,
• 21:02
  Speaker 9: that's why they're allied with Iran. And Iran needs Russian support.
• 21:05
  Speaker 9: So the first second order effect I think about is
• 21:08
  Speaker 9: in the Kremlin and what Putin is thinking about the
• 21:11
  Speaker 9: loss of an ally the potential loss of Iran.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: I'm not asking you to get into President Trump's head,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: but he has, you know, in the past criticized US
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: presidents for military intervention that resulted in the removal of
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: a world leader. He said that it would destabilize the
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: region in fuel terrorism. He's now president, and maybe to
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: him the world looks different. But why do you think,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: because it really is quite an about face.
• 21:37
  Speaker 9: I mean President Trump is the master of the about face, right,
• 21:40
  Speaker 9: I mean the stuff that comes out of his mouth.
• 21:42
  Speaker 9: You can't keep up with it. You need one of
• 21:43
  Speaker 9: those FBI walls with the string and the sticky notes. Right,
• 21:46
  Speaker 9: It's too difficult. But I think the key difference is
• 21:49
  Speaker 9: boots on the ground. And if we go back to
• 21:51
  Speaker 9: the Global War on Terror, we committed our land forces
• 21:54
  Speaker 9: to a region that ultimately didn't want us there. I mean,
• 21:57
  Speaker 9: it's better now than it was twenty years ago. But
• 21:59
  Speaker 9: I'll stand by the until I'm dead.
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: The Iraq.
• 22:01
  Speaker 9: What was a huge mistake, a huge.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Mans and Trump said that as well, and he.
• 22:05
  Speaker 9: Was right, Okay, we should have hit around twenty five
• 22:07
  Speaker 9: years ago. Frankly, So it's a complex picture. But if
• 22:10
  Speaker 9: we are now at a point in our history where
• 22:12
  Speaker 9: we have the complex technology such that, as you say,
• 22:15
  Speaker 9: we can find all these bad guys in one room
• 22:17
  Speaker 9: and with the help of Israel take them out, why not.
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: I kind of want to continue with the theme of
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: previous Middle East conflicts. What have you taken away from
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: historical patterns or what we've seen in history and what's
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: being present today or maybe not present.
• 22:34
  Speaker 9: Well, I mean, as a brit there's a lot of
• 22:36
  Speaker 9: history that the British are responsible for, and there are
• 22:40
  Speaker 9: a lot of you know, I mean, we don't need
• 22:41
  Speaker 9: to go into the history of psychspeaker, but there's a
• 22:43
  Speaker 9: lot of lines in that area that are not necessarily
• 22:46
  Speaker 9: helpful to that region. And I think that the previous
• 22:49
  Speaker 9: imperial era that we were in had a very clear objective,
• 22:52
  Speaker 9: which was to avoid a single Arab power, right, So
• 22:55
  Speaker 9: that's why there's a lot of different countries in that region,
• 22:57
  Speaker 9: and I think that they've been arguing about that ever
• 22:59
  Speaker 9: since and of course there's also the split in Islam right,
• 23:02
  Speaker 9: so Iran is not mainstream Islam and has to come
• 23:04
  Speaker 9: up with other reasons to be relevant on the Arab street,
• 23:07
  Speaker 9: they're not Arabs. So probably a long term trend towards
• 23:11
  Speaker 9: less chaos. I say that tentatively and hopefully, but of
• 23:14
  Speaker 9: course it's a place that has a lot of wars,
• 23:16
  Speaker 9: and we've seen Afghanistan Pakistan recently, so I don't expect
• 23:19
  Speaker 9: that to stop soon.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Speaking of Britain, they have put their support behind thrown
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: their support behind the US and Israel, I believe, so
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: as Germany and France. Do you see how might their
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: participation their active what might their active participation look like?
• 23:34
  Speaker 9: It's not even leading from behind with the current European
• 23:37
  Speaker 9: Union and the UK. I mean, I'm very disappointed in
• 23:39
  Speaker 9: the British Prime Minister. I feel like he's waiting for
• 23:41
  Speaker 9: the British Prime Minister to tell him what to do.
• 23:44
  Speaker 9: It's really not the way to do it. Let me
• 23:47
  Speaker 9: answer that by saying what I'd like to see, which
• 23:49
  Speaker 9: is a full throated Western alliance against this regime in
• 23:53
  Speaker 9: Iran that has been terrorizing US and Israel four years.
• 23:57
  Speaker 9: Get together, sort it out properly and get fully involved.
• 24:01
  Speaker 9: I mean, Germany needs to real anyway.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm hearing though from others saying, you know,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: the regime, the new regime may not be any better
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: than the regime we just took out. What are your
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: thoughts on that?
• 24:12
  Speaker 9: It may not be any better, but it will certainly
• 24:14
  Speaker 9: be more scared, more scared?
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: Oh scared?
• 24:17
  Speaker 9: Oh yeah, so now we can There's a lot of
• 24:18
  Speaker 9: stick going and a lot less carrot.
• 24:22
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