Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 4/2/26: Oil Prices Spike As Markets Tank, Iran Predicts US Invasion As Key Negotiator Wounded

Transcript

4/2/26: Oil Prices Spike As Markets Tank, Iran Predicts US Invasion As Key Negotiator Wounded · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

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Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 3: dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an
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Speaker 3: amazing show today. What do we have, Crystal, indeed we do.
0:40
Speaker 2: Stayed up for Trump's big speech last night and pretty
0:42
Speaker 2: much everybody hated it, ourselves included certainly the market. So
0:45
Speaker 2: we'll take a look at the highlights and lowlights of
0:48
Speaker 2: that one Tree to Parsi is also going to join
0:49
Speaker 2: to break that down.
0:50
Speaker 4: In the Iranian.
0:51
Speaker 2: Reaction, We're going to take a closer look at the
0:54
Speaker 2: backlash in Europe, the economic pain that they are already suffering,
0:58
Speaker 2: and what's to come what they're doing about it. We're
1:00
Speaker 2: also going to look at the Gulf Arab freakount as
1:03
Speaker 2: the UAE said they want to join the fight directly,
1:06
Speaker 2: and Iran continues to cause significant damage throughout the region.
1:09
Speaker 4: An economic historian.
1:10
Speaker 2: Is going to join us to talk about just how
1:13
Speaker 2: much the world order has already shifted with Iran claiming
1:17
Speaker 2: significant economic power, and are we already seeing the AI
1:21
Speaker 2: bubble collapse. There are some pretty extraordinary indicators in that direction.
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Speaker 1: Yes, that's right.
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Speaker 3: if you're able to do so, or share an episode
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Speaker 3: with a friend really helps other people find it. But
2:13
Speaker 3: as Christal said, we had a landmark. Trump's speech or
2:17
Speaker 3: as in it basically said nothing. I'm calling it the
2:20
Speaker 3: mission almost accomplished speech.
2:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, we stayed up late. There's bags underneath my eyes.
2:28
Speaker 3: All for effectively an amalgamation of truth social posts and
2:32
Speaker 3: for anybody watching this show, absolutely nothing of substance or
2:37
Speaker 3: new was said. If anything, the substance was that he
2:40
Speaker 3: has no plan and is truly caught in a rock
2:43
Speaker 3: and a hard place. He gave us a new update
2:45
Speaker 3: of a timeline two to three weeks of when the
2:49
Speaker 3: combat operations will resume, at least according to him.
2:53
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
2:54
Speaker 5: We're going to hit them extremely hard over the next
2:57
Speaker 5: two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back
3:01
Speaker 5: to the stone ages where they belong. Time no deal
3:04
Speaker 5: is made, we have our eyes or in key targets.
3:07
Speaker 5: If there is no deal, we are going to hit
3:09
Speaker 5: each and every one of their electric generating plants very
3:13
Speaker 5: hard and probably simultaneously. We have not hit their oil,
3:18
Speaker 5: even though that's the easiest target of all because it
3:21
Speaker 5: would not give them even a small chance of survival
3:25
Speaker 5: or rebuilding. But we could hit it and it would
3:29
Speaker 5: be gone, and there's not a thing they could do
3:32
Speaker 5: about it.
3:33
Speaker 3: Nothing they could do about it. I mean, this is
3:34
Speaker 3: why it was very mission almost accomplished. It was like,
3:37
Speaker 3: we've decimated them, we will continue to do so. But
3:40
Speaker 3: the big picture takeaway was it was neither a call
3:43
Speaker 3: to end the war. It was also neither a call
3:46
Speaker 3: to expand the war. It was basically a call of
3:49
Speaker 3: continuation of the current bombing campaign and continuing threats to
3:53
Speaker 3: the Iranian regime, saying that if you do not sign
3:57
Speaker 3: some sort of a ceasefire reopen the straits of hormone,
4:00
Speaker 3: then this will continue and will attack.
4:01
Speaker 1: Your energy grid.
4:02
Speaker 3: But that actually does show how stuck Donald Trump is.
4:06
Speaker 3: And I think it's worth going through the options right crystal,
4:08
Speaker 3: where you have this option of a ground invasion or
4:11
Speaker 3: of this insane uranium grab, which we'll get to in
4:14
Speaker 3: a little bit of what the exact details are. While
4:16
Speaker 3: that would obviously draw US in further that would be
4:19
Speaker 3: a disaster. You could obviously bomb Iranian energy infrastructure and
4:23
Speaker 3: desalination plans. But after a month of bombing, the Iranians
4:26
Speaker 3: are continuing their ability to strike critical infrastructure all across
4:30
Speaker 3: the Gulf. So we know that if we do that,
4:32
Speaker 3: then they will do that to the Golf, precipitating moreid
4:35
Speaker 3: energy crisis. And then you have the Straits of Hormuz problem.
4:38
Speaker 3: The Straits of Hormuz problem that it's closed that the
4:41
Speaker 3: Iranians have almost total control over it.
4:43
Speaker 1: They're able to charge.
4:44
Speaker 3: This toll, they're asking for denomination in wand and or cryptocurrency.
4:48
Speaker 3: They're making deals with the Philippines, with India, with China,
4:51
Speaker 3: with various different nations. But it is closed to all
4:54
Speaker 3: critical US allies and specifically to the Golf. And so
4:57
Speaker 3: he has no plan for reopening it. And the only
5:00
Speaker 3: declaration he really could give was you guys who depend
5:03
Speaker 3: on it, you go and take it. And so if
5:06
Speaker 3: he unilaterally tacos, it's a surrender. If he continues just
5:11
Speaker 3: bombing infrastructure, it will still come back to bite us
5:14
Speaker 3: in our energy markets. And if he does a ground
5:16
Speaker 3: invasion then we're going to draw further.
5:18
Speaker 1: Into this thing.
5:19
Speaker 3: So I actually think that the speech is very important
5:21
Speaker 3: to show how stuck Donald Trump is in the crisis
5:26
Speaker 3: of his own making and the world and the rest
5:28
Speaker 3: of us by extension.
5:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, there are zero good options on the table
5:33
Speaker 2: right now. There are only terrible options on the table
5:36
Speaker 2: right now visa you know, America and America's pre eminence
5:40
Speaker 2: in the world. And so this speech was basically like, oh,
5:44
Speaker 2: we're doing an amazing job. Of course, we haven't actually
5:47
Speaker 2: accomplished any of our strategic objectives, and things are measurably
5:51
Speaker 2: worse than they were before we started this war. But
5:54
Speaker 2: we're just going to continue basically the same thing for
5:56
Speaker 2: the next two to three weeks and hope that something
5:59
Speaker 2: about that changes the dynamic. So, you know, there was
6:01
Speaker 2: all kinds of insider info being leaked before, Oh he's
6:05
Speaker 2: going to signal that the war is coming to an end,
6:07
Speaker 2: or oh he's going to signal that there's going to
6:09
Speaker 2: be a ground invasion. He signaled absolutely nothing. And so
6:12
Speaker 2: I think the markets, which have been sort of delusional
6:15
Speaker 2: about the idea like this can't possibly go on, right,
6:18
Speaker 2: This has to this cannot persist something has to change.
6:23
Speaker 2: He's definitely going to find some way to extricate himself
6:26
Speaker 2: in the country, in the world from this situation. They
6:29
Speaker 2: listened to this speech and they were like, oh, you've
6:31
Speaker 2: got nothing. Actually you actually have nothing, and you're you're
6:36
Speaker 2: not unilaterally talkoing, You're saying, Okay, this is going to
6:39
Speaker 2: kind of go on two to three weeks. But that
6:40
Speaker 2: basically means indefinitely could put a two up on the screen.
6:44
Speaker 2: I mean, we instantly saw oil prices going back up.
6:47
Speaker 2: Look at that surge, we saw put the next one
6:50
Speaker 2: up on the screen. You saw stock futures tanking. And
6:54
Speaker 2: this is after they had rallied based on some of
6:57
Speaker 2: the noises he was making and some of the information
6:59
Speaker 2: that was being leaked about hard he was looking for
7:02
Speaker 2: an exit, so he has run out of his ability
7:07
Speaker 2: to bullshit the markets. And I think that was the
7:09
Speaker 2: real goal of this speech, was to continue to try
7:11
Speaker 2: to buy himself some time so he can figure out
7:15
Speaker 2: what he's going to do here, or give himself some
7:17
Speaker 2: time maybe to continue to mass more military assets in
7:20
Speaker 2: the region to pursue whatever next military option he's going
7:24
Speaker 2: to pursue. But certainly people were not comforted by this
7:28
Speaker 2: far from it.
7:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, and everybody keep in mind, you know we're recording
7:31
Speaker 3: this early in the morning, before the markets closed. Where
7:33
Speaker 3: things stand right now is the S and P futures
7:35
Speaker 3: are down one point sixty seven percent. And actually, what's
7:38
Speaker 3: even crazier is the huge rally in crude oil fore
7:42
Speaker 3: you West Texas specifically, it's at one hundred and nine
7:44
Speaker 3: dollars of barrel nine point seven percent in the pre
7:49
Speaker 3: market open. Brent is also at one oh nine. What's
7:52
Speaker 3: interesting is that the spread between those two, which traditionally
7:56
Speaker 3: Brent for the last month or so had been about
7:58
Speaker 3: ten dollars a barrel higher than West Texas, they have
8:01
Speaker 3: now equalized too, roughly the same price, either affecting a
8:05
Speaker 3: total price, but reflecting I think what people know now,
8:08
Speaker 3: which is that people are going to have to come
8:10
Speaker 3: and buy oil either you know, from wherever across the globe,
8:13
Speaker 3: limited amount of supply and the equalization of price. This
8:15
Speaker 3: is from some oil analysts which I follow. What that demonstrates, though,
8:19
Speaker 3: is that gas prices for us here at home, at
8:23
Speaker 3: least in the interim, because remember if he says two
8:25
Speaker 3: to three weeks, that is an effective more declaration of
8:28
Speaker 3: two to three weeks of effective closure in the Straits
8:31
Speaker 3: of Hormuz. Now one of the reasons why we're not
8:33
Speaker 3: in a full blown catastrophe scenario. I was listening to
8:36
Speaker 3: Javier blass over at Bloomberg this morning. What he explained
8:40
Speaker 3: is that there actually was a bit of a glut
8:42
Speaker 3: in the oil market, so there was a lot of
8:44
Speaker 3: floating storage. There was approximately actually about a month of
8:48
Speaker 3: you know, storage and or capacity inside the system, because
8:51
Speaker 3: it takes a long time for these ships to make
8:53
Speaker 3: their ways across the oceans, you know, to Asia to Europe.
8:57
Speaker 3: You know, it's like almost forty days actually from the
8:59
Speaker 3: unit to the United States. So obviously there was a
9:01
Speaker 3: lot of actually elasticity in the side the system. But
9:04
Speaker 3: all of that has now effectively been used up. There's
9:07
Speaker 3: no more spare capacity. And with no more spare capacity,
9:10
Speaker 3: then you're gonna see the real shortage. And the other
9:13
Speaker 3: problem is, you know, in a lot of ways, he
9:15
Speaker 3: actually contextualized something very interesting to me, which is that
9:19
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, like people like us
9:20
Speaker 3: focusing on the actual price of the barrel, why do
9:22
Speaker 3: we care about the price of a barrel of oil?
9:24
Speaker 3: We don't what we care about is the price of
9:27
Speaker 3: these refined products what Rory has called these what is
9:29
Speaker 3: it middle distillates.
9:31
Speaker 1: I think that's what he said.
9:32
Speaker 3: And those distillates are like jet fuel, gasoline. Well, jet
9:36
Speaker 3: fuel in Europe just hit two hundred dollars a barrel.
9:39
Speaker 3: That's after Singapore hit two hundred a barrel. You have
9:43
Speaker 3: got airports across Asia and across Europe issuing basically guidance saying, hey,
9:48
Speaker 3: there's a chance where we just don't have jet fuel,
9:51
Speaker 3: like you can't land here in a few months. So
9:54
Speaker 3: three more weeks of closure of the Strait is not
9:57
Speaker 3: just an oil problem.
9:58
Speaker 1: It's a jet fuel problem. It's a gasoline problem.
10:01
Speaker 3: Diesel six dollars a gallon looking very very likely. I
10:04
Speaker 3: think Europe again, you know two hundred dollars a barrel,
10:07
Speaker 3: So you can actually see how the crisis is now
10:11
Speaker 3: escalating dramatically in two to three weeks, and that's what's
10:14
Speaker 3: catching up to the reality of the oil market. And
10:17
Speaker 3: again to stand with Donald Trump's speech, he actually did
10:21
Speaker 3: address gas prices head on, and it was the opposite
10:24
Speaker 3: of comforting. It was just the classic short term gain
10:28
Speaker 3: for long term, short term pain for long term gain
10:31
Speaker 3: here's what he had to say.
10:32
Speaker 5: Many Americans have been concerned to see the recent rise
10:36
Speaker 5: in gasoline prices here at home. The short term increase
10:41
Speaker 5: has been entirely the result of the Iranian regime launching
10:44
Speaker 5: deranged terror attacks against commercial oil tankers and neighboring countries
10:49
Speaker 5: that have nothing to do with the conflict. This is
10:53
Speaker 5: yet more proof that Iran can never be trusted with
10:56
Speaker 5: nuclear weapons. They will use them, and they will use
10:58
Speaker 5: them quickly.
11:00
Speaker 1: I love this.
11:00
Speaker 3: So it is proved Iran cannot be trusted because they
11:03
Speaker 3: will attack if we attack them. I'm pretty sure that's
11:06
Speaker 3: the strategic logic of literally every country in the world.
11:10
Speaker 3: But you could see the short term increase is the
11:12
Speaker 3: result of Iran, not the United States launching and entering
11:16
Speaker 3: into this war. Really though, you know what's also fascinating
11:20
Speaker 3: is how undemocratic this entire war has been. TMZ doing
11:23
Speaker 3: such a great job of tracking all these congressmen on
11:26
Speaker 3: their vacations. Lindsey Graham, a childless seventy year old free
11:30
Speaker 3: hanging out at Disney World. Sorry, you know, I've made
11:34
Speaker 3: my princess with this princess wand I've made the declaration
11:36
Speaker 3: here on the show that I'm not going to Disney.
11:39
Speaker 3: Daughter may change my mind around age four or five.
11:42
Speaker 3: I don't want to see Grandpa Lindsay walking around childless
11:45
Speaker 3: man with the Princess Juan while my daughter's there.
11:48
Speaker 2: Just me okay, Wally's sending our sons and daughters off
11:51
Speaker 2: to the Middle East.
11:52
Speaker 4: EI, how about that if you want to.
11:54
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, it's just disgusting to me so
11:56
Speaker 2: right that too, you know, it almost it almost is
12:00
Speaker 2: lost in all of the mania that there was no vote,
12:04
Speaker 2: there was no debate. You know, there's been very little
12:07
Speaker 2: direct information given to the American public, and to the
12:09
Speaker 2: extent there is, they just consistently lie.
12:12
Speaker 4: About what every day the goals change.
12:14
Speaker 2: Marco Rubio now is added back, you know, making sure
12:18
Speaker 2: that iron can never have a nuclear weapon. That's in
12:20
Speaker 2: the latest iteration of what the goals are. It's just,
12:24
Speaker 2: to your point, fundamentally undemocratic in a way that is
12:27
Speaker 2: deeply troubling because it seems to signal they don't think
12:30
Speaker 2: that they need democratic consent. They didn't bother manufacturing consent.
12:35
Speaker 2: They barely bother to speak to us. And I think
12:37
Speaker 2: the only reason that Trump gave this speech yesterday which
12:40
Speaker 2: was you know, pack full of lies and deception as usual.
12:43
Speaker 2: But I think it was not really about the American people.
12:45
Speaker 2: It was trying to calm the markets and give them,
12:48
Speaker 2: you know, make sure that oil prices stay low per barrel,
12:51
Speaker 2: make sure the markets go up, make sure the bond yields,
12:53
Speaker 2: and that's the other thing we need to continue to
12:55
Speaker 2: talk about, make sure the bond yields don't spike up
12:57
Speaker 2: too high, because you know, that is a significant a
13:01
Speaker 2: driver of his moves as anything else. And then there
13:04
Speaker 2: was this really wild moment where he's like, well, we've
13:07
Speaker 2: been doing this for a month, but like if you
13:09
Speaker 2: think about like World War One or World War two,
13:11
Speaker 2: this is nothing in the grand scheme of the type
13:14
Speaker 2: of wars that we typically wage. Let's go ahead and
13:16
Speaker 2: take a listen to that zod.
13:18
Speaker 5: We'll hit them with missiles very hard. Again, we have
13:22
Speaker 5: all the cards they have done. It's very important that
13:25
Speaker 5: we keep this conflict in perspective. American involvement in World
13:31
Speaker 5: War One lasted one year, seven months and five days.
13:37
Speaker 5: World War two lasted four three years, eight months, and
13:40
Speaker 5: twenty five days. The Korean War lasted for three years,
13:44
Speaker 5: one month, and two days the Vietnam War lasted for
13:49
Speaker 5: nineteen years, five months, and twenty nine days. Iraq went
13:54
Speaker 5: on for eight years, eight months and twenty eight days.
13:58
Speaker 5: We are in this military, so powerful, so brilliant against
14:03
Speaker 5: one of the most powerful countries for thirty two days,
14:08
Speaker 5: and the country has been eviscerated and essentially is really
14:13
Speaker 5: no longer a threat.
14:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, not use it.
14:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if I was advising him, if
14:19
Speaker 2: I would be like, you know, definitely remind people about
14:22
Speaker 2: Vietnam and Iraq in this speech. Definitely bring those wars
14:26
Speaker 2: up in comparison to what we're doing now.
14:28
Speaker 3: I oppose like half of the wars he just listed,
14:31
Speaker 3: and by the way, every single one of those at
14:33
Speaker 3: least had the pretext of Congress, who was authorizing all
14:36
Speaker 3: of those operations. I would also note that in the
14:38
Speaker 3: case of Iraq, Iraq and of Vietnam, that in both
14:42
Speaker 3: of those the way that it was sold to the
14:44
Speaker 3: American people was basically exactly like this, It's just a
14:48
Speaker 3: small operation. We could take a few weeks, a few months,
14:52
Speaker 3: who knows, and then will be out of there. It'll
14:54
Speaker 3: be easy. Remember the General Westmoreland quote where he was like,
14:57
Speaker 3: there's no scenario in nineteen sixty five where Marines will
15:01
Speaker 3: be directly engaging with the Vietnamese.
15:04
Speaker 1: How did that workout?
15:05
Speaker 3: So that's the problem about how he out of control.
15:08
Speaker 3: This entire situation really has gotten and I think you
15:11
Speaker 3: now have to just turn and look to the horrible
15:14
Speaker 3: options that Trump faces. And at this point, you know,
15:17
Speaker 3: you and I kind of were hoping for this unilateral
15:19
Speaker 3: taco Well unfortunately it just seems like his ego and
15:24
Speaker 3: the United States just can't take it.
15:26
Speaker 1: Right now.
15:27
Speaker 3: There hasn't been enough pain exacted upon our population or
15:30
Speaker 3: upon our system for the population to actually trant to
15:34
Speaker 3: drive the president to really you have to accept a
15:37
Speaker 3: historic defeat. So that's one He's not going to do that,
15:39
Speaker 3: which is why they want to continue to bomb for
15:41
Speaker 3: the next two to three weeks. Well, the longer that
15:44
Speaker 3: that goes on, well you obviously have the same escalation
15:46
Speaker 3: trap that Professor Pape has been on the show talking about.
15:49
Speaker 3: And you see all of these military assets which just
15:52
Speaker 3: continue to move into the region. Let's put a six
15:55
Speaker 3: up there on the screen. Here's a good example. The
15:57
Speaker 3: Pentagon is doubling the fleet of the A ten attack
16:01
Speaker 3: planes in the Middle East. The famed Warthog, which of
16:04
Speaker 3: course is used for what it's for, close air ground support. Right,
16:07
Speaker 3: And this is something where I mean you could literally
16:10
Speaker 3: go on YouTube. You can watch videos of this plane
16:13
Speaker 3: in Afghanistan and in Iraq. I mean, it's pretty awesome
16:16
Speaker 3: to watch. But it's not just a video game, right.
16:18
Speaker 3: This is about potential invasion where you'd have to support.
16:22
Speaker 3: So you'd have to have close air support to ground
16:24
Speaker 3: troops which are engaged in combat with Iranian forces. You
16:28
Speaker 3: also have all of these marines, the eighty second Airborne,
16:32
Speaker 3: all of these Kakamamy schemes that are being drawn up,
16:35
Speaker 3: like he is grasping at straws across the board for
16:39
Speaker 3: how to get out of this, and the Iranians just
16:41
Speaker 3: continue to say, no, no, no, we're not doing your seaspire.
16:45
Speaker 1: We're not negotiating with you. Our terms are very clear.
16:48
Speaker 3: They also are not in a position where they've felt
16:51
Speaker 3: nearly enough pain, and so the logic from the White
16:54
Speaker 3: House is what we have to.
16:55
Speaker 1: Continue to make them feel pain.
16:57
Speaker 3: One quote, which I don't even think we have necessarily
17:00
Speaker 3: but I think is really important, is that did you
17:03
Speaker 3: note that Donald Trump kept dropping that famous line We're
17:07
Speaker 3: going to bomb them back to the Stone Ages, and
17:09
Speaker 3: Pete Hegseth also tweeted it out actually last night, I
17:12
Speaker 3: have it in front of me, and he says, back
17:14
Speaker 3: to the Stone Age, right, and it's supposed to be
17:16
Speaker 3: like this raw raw chest beating thing. Well, I let's
17:20
Speaker 3: take a look at the history of that quote. That
17:22
Speaker 3: quote was uttered by General Curtis LeMay in nineteen sixty.
17:27
Speaker 1: Five about North Vietnam.
17:29
Speaker 3: That quote was the logic for Rolling Thunder and Linebacker
17:33
Speaker 3: two is all we have to do is bomb the
17:36
Speaker 3: North Vietnamese into submission.
17:38
Speaker 1: How did it work?
17:39
Speaker 3: So it's like, you know, let's look at the history
17:41
Speaker 3: of the back to the Stone Age logic, which is
17:43
Speaker 3: that we can accomplish this entirely from the air, and
17:46
Speaker 3: that we can compel the enemy to try to make
17:49
Speaker 3: these concessions by just bombing so much of their critical infrastructure.
17:53
Speaker 1: And maybe that would work if you.
17:55
Speaker 3: Weren't dealing with the country which has underground missile cities
17:58
Speaker 3: and drones and after a month is still able to
18:02
Speaker 3: inflict a significant amount of damage on critical infrastructure in
18:06
Speaker 3: the golf. And that's the problem is if we bomb
18:08
Speaker 3: them back to the Stone Age, well, they're going to
18:10
Speaker 3: try and get the golf as close to that as
18:13
Speaker 3: possible as well. This is the core problem. If there's
18:16
Speaker 3: an invasion and or so called stone Age style bombing,
18:20
Speaker 3: well then the Strait will just be mined entirely. If
18:23
Speaker 3: you try and knock out power plants or desalination, then
18:26
Speaker 3: they're going to do the same to the golf. I mean,
18:29
Speaker 3: I was looking apparently the Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia
18:32
Speaker 3: is a huge country, right Apparently their defense on the
18:35
Speaker 3: desalination plants it's not very good, and they're already running
18:38
Speaker 3: low on interceptors right from the United States and the
18:41
Speaker 3: UAE and the golf Qatar, Bahrain. But these countries, it's
18:44
Speaker 3: not like they're not very well hardened. A lot of
18:47
Speaker 3: their infrastructure sites in the same way that Iran's desalination
18:50
Speaker 3: plants and others aren't nearly as harted. Except Iranda is
18:54
Speaker 3: not nearly as reliant on desalination as the golf countries.
18:58
Speaker 3: We're talking about like less than two weeks worth of water.
19:01
Speaker 3: So every action is going to have an equal and
19:03
Speaker 3: opposite reaction here from a strategic level perspective, and I
19:07
Speaker 3: just think that's so important to hammer home. It's like
19:10
Speaker 3: it's look, everything that's old comes back around, back to
19:13
Speaker 3: the Stone Age. Like I said, it was coined at
19:15
Speaker 3: a time, you know, by the you know, the father
19:18
Speaker 3: of the air campaign in World War Two, and there
19:20
Speaker 3: was reason to believe why that might work at the time.
19:23
Speaker 3: But now we have the evidence like it actually didn't work.
19:25
Speaker 3: It was a titanic failure to so see it recycled
19:29
Speaker 3: as some sort of chest beating thing. We have to
19:31
Speaker 3: just take a step back and say, guys, this is
19:33
Speaker 3: not gonna work. And that's why I just came out
19:35
Speaker 3: that speech with despair. I'm like, the war can't end,
19:39
Speaker 3: it can't continue either, And you're like, how do we
19:42
Speaker 3: get out.
19:42
Speaker 1: Of this one? I really don't know.
19:47
Speaker 2: I mean that's what you get is really it feels
19:49
Speaker 2: like Trump is well and truly lost.
19:52
Speaker 4: And to your point.
19:53
Speaker 2: About the back to the Stone Age, I mean, it's
19:55
Speaker 2: just I mean, it's a disgusting thing to say to
19:57
Speaker 2: begin with. So we'll start with the amorality or a
19:59
Speaker 2: more of the way that he operates, the way Hegseth operates,
20:03
Speaker 2: the way they brag about committing war crimes. I mean,
20:06
Speaker 2: it truly is disgusting, and even if you have no
20:08
Speaker 2: moral qualms with it, you see the way that enabling
20:11
Speaker 2: that sort of you know, terroristic warfare that you know
20:15
Speaker 2: also can apply to our adversaries. So you know, no
20:19
Speaker 2: one is going to really have any moral credibility to
20:21
Speaker 2: wag their fingers at Iran when they are also targeting
20:24
Speaker 2: civilian infrastructure.
20:26
Speaker 4: So there's that.
20:27
Speaker 2: But I was thinking when I listened to that line,
20:29
Speaker 2: I was thinking of what Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson talked to
20:32
Speaker 2: us about that if he was in a wargame with
20:34
Speaker 2: someone who was just like, yeah, I blew up a
20:36
Speaker 2: lot of stuff, he'd be like, what is wrong with Okay?
20:38
Speaker 4: Did you accomplish any of your objectives?
20:41
Speaker 1: No, you didn't.
20:42
Speaker 2: Just because you can blow up some stuff doesn't mean
20:45
Speaker 2: that you're accomplishing any of the actual goals. Here, of course,
20:49
Speaker 2: in this war, we don't even know what the actual
20:51
Speaker 2: goals are. One of the goals was originally regime change.
20:55
Speaker 2: Now we're being told, both in this speech last night,
20:58
Speaker 2: that that was never one of the goals, even though
21:00
Speaker 2: that was highly featured in the original announcement of this war.
21:04
Speaker 2: We're also being told that it's already happened even though
21:08
Speaker 2: you have literally, you know, another COMMANI in charge of
21:12
Speaker 2: the state of Israel, so I mean the state of Iran.
21:15
Speaker 4: So this is just really wild the way that he
21:18
Speaker 4: approaches this.
21:19
Speaker 2: But you know, again, what's my big takeaway is he
21:23
Speaker 2: really is lost.
21:25
Speaker 4: He doesn't know what to do.
21:27
Speaker 2: We're I'm about to play a sound bite he you know,
21:29
Speaker 2: in this leaked audio that was not supposed to come out,
21:32
Speaker 2: actually leaked video that was not supposed to be posted,
21:35
Speaker 2: he admitted that he thought this would be over in
21:37
Speaker 2: three days, and that was the reporting before that. He
21:39
Speaker 2: was telling our allies that in four days the whole
21:41
Speaker 2: thing would be over, and when it wasn't, was like, okay,
21:46
Speaker 2: what now. So maybe he wants to get out of
21:49
Speaker 2: this thing, but he actually can't take the humiliation that
21:53
Speaker 2: would be involved in just walking away with Iran having
21:57
Speaker 2: scored a major, major strategic victory in terms of taking
22:02
Speaker 2: control of the Strait of Hormu, something he also talked
22:05
Speaker 2: about in this speech, again going with this line of like, well,
22:07
Speaker 2: the people who you know, the people who really rely.
22:10
Speaker 4: On it, they should come in. They should cherish it.
22:12
Speaker 2: He said, they should come in and they should take
22:14
Speaker 2: it over and we've done the hard part.
22:16
Speaker 4: So good luck to you all.
22:17
Speaker 2: But in any case, you know, as evidence of how
22:20
Speaker 2: this is all just improvised and there really is no
22:23
Speaker 2: strategy and the goals here changed day to day. Let's
22:26
Speaker 2: take a listen to a little bit of this leaked
22:28
Speaker 2: video where he admits he thought it would be over
22:30
Speaker 2: in three days.
22:31
Speaker 5: I said, you have too old, broken down aircraft carriage.
22:34
Speaker 5: I think you could send them over. Oh, I'll have
22:38
Speaker 5: to ask my team. I said, you're the Prime minister.
22:41
Speaker 5: You don't have no, no, no, I have to ask
22:44
Speaker 5: my team. President. My team has to meet. We're meeting
22:47
Speaker 5: next week, next week, but the war already started next week.
22:51
Speaker 5: It's not good. The war's going to be over in
22:54
Speaker 5: three days my prediction. It turns out, by the way,
22:57
Speaker 5: do we have the greatest military.
22:59
Speaker 2: Ever going to be over in three days? Well, guess what.
23:04
Speaker 2: That didn't happen. And now he's saying it's going to
23:05
Speaker 2: be over in two weeks. I don't think that's going
23:07
Speaker 2: to happen either.
23:07
Speaker 4: Saga.
23:08
Speaker 6: Yeah.
23:08
Speaker 3: And actually, probably the most significant piece of video, and
23:12
Speaker 3: just to explain, basically, this was a White House Easter lunch.
23:17
Speaker 1: It was not open to the press.
23:19
Speaker 3: Obviously, though the White House filmed the whole thing, they
23:21
Speaker 3: accidentally updated uploaded the whole video to YouTube for maybe
23:26
Speaker 3: only five minutes, but in that time enough people were
23:28
Speaker 3: able to download the film video and so they could
23:31
Speaker 3: get some of the clips of the President talking at
23:33
Speaker 3: least somewhat came more candidly than he would necessarily. And
23:36
Speaker 3: this one, you are going to see this everywhere. Here
23:39
Speaker 3: is Donald Trump saying why we can't have daycare or
23:43
Speaker 3: medicare or medicaid because the purpose of the government is
23:47
Speaker 3: to fight war. That's about as unpopular and as opposite
23:50
Speaker 3: to his original message and his campaigns as you could
23:53
Speaker 3: possibly get.
23:54
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
23:55
Speaker 5: Because the United States can't take care of daycare. That
23:59
Speaker 5: has to be up to state. We can't take care
24:02
Speaker 5: of daycare. We're a big country, we have fifty states,
24:04
Speaker 5: we have all these other people who are fighting wars.
24:07
Speaker 5: We can't take care of daycare. You got to let
24:10
Speaker 5: a state take care of daycare. And they should pay
24:12
Speaker 5: for it too. They should pay They have to raise
24:15
Speaker 5: their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we
24:17
Speaker 5: could lower our taxes a little bit to them to
24:20
Speaker 5: make up. But it's not possible for us to take
24:23
Speaker 5: care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They
24:28
Speaker 5: can do it on the state basis, you can't do
24:30
Speaker 5: it in a federal We have to take care of
24:32
Speaker 5: one thing, military protection.
24:34
Speaker 3: We have to take care of one thing military protection.
24:37
Speaker 3: So basically, we can't do medicare, we can't do medicaid,
24:40
Speaker 3: we can't do childcare, we can't do child tax credits
24:43
Speaker 3: because we have to fight an unpopular war of twenty
24:46
Speaker 3: six percent. And not even George W. Bush would Dane
24:50
Speaker 3: to say something like that. So, yeah, that's coming to
24:54
Speaker 3: a midterm ad near you.
24:56
Speaker 1: Can you imagine what if you're a voter.
25:00
Speaker 3: And again, most motors, again, they really have no idea
25:02
Speaker 3: that's going on. I know that's crazy to people who
25:04
Speaker 3: watch this show, but I'm telling you the vast majority
25:06
Speaker 3: of people, to the extent they know that there's a problem.
25:09
Speaker 3: It's that there's four dollars gasoline. I've compared it to COVID.
25:12
Speaker 3: They think it'll resolve relatively quickly. They're not reading quotes
25:16
Speaker 3: and looking at jet fuels, crack spreads and all this
25:19
Speaker 3: other stuff. They're just living their lives and there's nothing
25:22
Speaker 3: wrong with that, But when they see something like that,
25:25
Speaker 3: when they're still paying four dollars a gallon a month
25:28
Speaker 3: from now, or four point fifty or five dollars a
25:31
Speaker 3: gallon in the future, which is not out of the
25:32
Speaker 3: question considering where oil continues to trade and the closure
25:36
Speaker 3: of the straits of horror moves. Yeah, good luck to
25:38
Speaker 3: anybody who tries to bolster that one in the midterms.
25:41
Speaker 6: Yeah.
25:41
Speaker 4: I was just looking today.
25:43
Speaker 2: It's four eight is the national average gas price. So
25:47
Speaker 2: every day we're taking up and up, we are going
25:50
Speaker 2: to hit all time highs. I think here very shortly.
25:54
Speaker 2: And you know, it also reminds me as I hear
25:56
Speaker 2: Trump talking about, Ah, we can't afford childcare or Medicare dedicade. Sorry,
26:01
Speaker 2: because we got to spend on all these wars of
26:03
Speaker 2: choice that I'm starting. We got to pay for the
26:06
Speaker 2: one point five trillion dollar defense budget that he's requesting.
26:10
Speaker 2: We got to pay for the two hundred billion dollar
26:12
Speaker 2: supplemental that he wants just for this particular quote unquote excursion. Sorry,
26:17
Speaker 2: we can't do anything to help you out. I was
26:20
Speaker 2: also thinking about all these quotes from Pete Hegsath and
26:23
Speaker 2: others who are like Iran is such a terrorist state
26:26
Speaker 2: because instead of spending their money on their people, they
26:29
Speaker 2: choose to spend it on all these missiles and all
26:32
Speaker 2: this military technology. It's like, Iran's military budget per year
26:37
Speaker 2: is roughly.
26:38
Speaker 4: Ten billion dollars.
26:40
Speaker 2: Ten Okay, we are looking to spend two hundred billion
26:43
Speaker 2: just on this one frickin thing. But to hear Trump
26:46
Speaker 2: outright say we are trading your healthcare for this wildly unpopular,
26:53
Speaker 2: illegal war of choice is one of the most shocking
26:58
Speaker 2: admissions in American life that you could possibly imagine. Of course,
27:02
Speaker 2: we all know that that is the case, but to
27:04
Speaker 2: hear the President of the United States just out and
27:07
Speaker 2: out admit that that's the way he thinks about it too,
27:10
Speaker 2: is wild. And we know, soccer, we're talking the other
27:13
Speaker 2: day about how, you know, to pay for this two
27:15
Speaker 2: hundred billion dollars in supplemental funding.
27:17
Speaker 4: What are they looking at? Healthcare? Healthcare?
27:20
Speaker 2: They're looking at, you know, maybe it's Medicare advantage that
27:22
Speaker 2: they'll figure out some way to cut to the bone.
27:26
Speaker 2: They're going to take away services from Americans who rely
27:30
Speaker 2: on those services in order to you know, drop more
27:33
Speaker 2: bombs on little girls' schools and athletic complexes and bomb
27:37
Speaker 2: them back to the Stone Age. So this is the
27:40
Speaker 2: choice that the President of the United States has made
27:43
Speaker 2: him and him alone. There was no precipitating event, all
27:46
Speaker 2: of the stuff of all they were pursuing a bomb,
27:49
Speaker 2: total and complete lies. There was a very generous deal
27:53
Speaker 2: on the table, according to you know, the Omanis who
27:56
Speaker 2: were involved in this, a very generous deal on the table,
27:58
Speaker 2: and instead he chose to send your healthcare away in
28:03
Speaker 2: the form of you know, bombs and war crimes.
28:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, I was thinking too. I was
28:07
Speaker 3: in a reflective mood with Artemis two. Congratulations by the
28:10
Speaker 3: way to the crew. Artemis two is a redux of
28:13
Speaker 3: Apollo eight. So Apollo eight was the lap around the Moon,
28:16
Speaker 3: and a lot of people may forget Apollo eight happened
28:19
Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty eight, literally at the height of the
28:22
Speaker 3: Vietnam War, and I was like, wow, I mean, exactly
28:26
Speaker 3: fifty eight years later, we're going back to the Moon
28:29
Speaker 3: for a moon lap, except this time we're just doing
28:31
Speaker 3: what we've already done again.
28:33
Speaker 1: And then at the height you know.
28:35
Speaker 3: A nineteen sixty eight it was one of the only
28:37
Speaker 3: bright spots of nineteen sixty eight, and then I was thinking,
28:39
Speaker 3: you know, obviously I'm a huge fan of space exploration.
28:42
Speaker 1: I want to see more things like that.
28:44
Speaker 3: What ultimately killed the Apollo program and a space exploration
28:48
Speaker 3: at large, it was basically the unpopular war in Vietnam
28:52
Speaker 3: and this notion that we were going abroad with Vietnam
28:55
Speaker 3: and we were spiking our own inflation and we ruined
28:58
Speaker 3: our own economy with interest rates, and that we didn't
29:01
Speaker 3: focus enough here at home. And it's like, it seems
29:05
Speaker 3: genuinely like so much continues to rhyme with that time.
29:09
Speaker 3: Like I remember reading about the Apollo program at the
29:11
Speaker 3: time and how unpopular at least somewhat it eventually became
29:15
Speaker 3: in the nineteen seventies why they ended up cutting many
29:17
Speaker 3: of those missions, and it was exactly because of sentiments
29:20
Speaker 3: like this. Now, I'm of the belief that we can
29:21
Speaker 3: do all of the above, but one of the things
29:23
Speaker 3: that we shouldn't be doing is unpopular crazy wars of
29:27
Speaker 3: choice which spiked the global energy or spike global energy markets,
29:31
Speaker 3: turn the world and all of that against us. We
29:33
Speaker 3: could have the better parts, like you know, healthcare and
29:35
Speaker 3: all these other things, and the Apollo program or the
29:38
Speaker 3: Artemis program. But we don't have to have this part,
29:40
Speaker 3: and this part is really what sours and drains all
29:44
Speaker 3: of the resources runy, of the cool and the good
29:46
Speaker 3: things that we could actually do. It's really sad, actually
29:48
Speaker 3: to see such an incredible feat of engineering and of
29:51
Speaker 3: humanity happen at the very same time to watch the
29:54
Speaker 3: same exact playbook runback, which is what cost us a
29:58
Speaker 3: lot of that future in the first place. Spot all right,
30:01
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess that's what we've been destined to repeat.
30:05
Speaker 2: Well, and one last point on that, just to continue
30:08
Speaker 2: on your reflective journey, is you know, I mean this
30:11
Speaker 2: administration has wildly cut the budget for any sort of
30:13
Speaker 2: scientific endeavors. I mean, it's almost undoubtedly the case that China,
30:17
Speaker 2: which continues to invest a lot, a lot in research, technology, value, scientists, etc.
30:23
Speaker 2: Is going to you know, leap frogus in terms of
30:27
Speaker 2: this sort of technology and all sorts of technological frontier developments. So,
30:32
Speaker 2: you know, yet another choice made by this administration.
30:35
Speaker 1: Sad. All right, we got treat to party standing by.
30:37
Speaker 3: He's going to break down the Iranian response some of
30:40
Speaker 3: Donald Trump' speech. A new letter released by the President
30:42
Speaker 3: of Iran, God bless him, thinking that any of us
30:45
Speaker 3: are going to read one thousand words. But Treata will
30:46
Speaker 3: do his best still to break it all down. So
30:49
Speaker 3: let's get to it.
30:53
Speaker 2: Joining us now is doctor treat To Parsi is the
30:55
Speaker 2: executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
30:58
Speaker 1: Great to see you, Sarah, Good to see you, Good
31:00
Speaker 1: to be with you, guys.
31:01
Speaker 4: So Treata.
31:02
Speaker 2: First off, just your reaction to whatever that speech was
31:05
Speaker 2: last night from the President?
31:07
Speaker 5: Yeah?
31:07
Speaker 4: Well was that?
31:08
Speaker 6: I mean? Really?
31:09
Speaker 1: To me?
31:10
Speaker 6: It sounded like a summary of his social media tweets
31:15
Speaker 6: and posts for the last thirty days, put kind of
31:17
Speaker 6: in chronological order. I did not see anything new, threats
31:22
Speaker 6: that he has issued before and not acted upon, you know,
31:27
Speaker 6: statements of why the Iranians are so bad in a
31:30
Speaker 6: rather confused way, nothing coherent whatsoever. I do not understand
31:35
Speaker 6: why he said that he wanted to give a speech.
31:37
Speaker 6: If the aim was to do a more aggressive intervention
31:41
Speaker 6: in the markets, you know, his previous interventions have been
31:45
Speaker 6: successful the market, you know, the old prices should be
31:48
Speaker 6: much higher than they are. But if the aim was that,
31:51
Speaker 6: you know, he needed to do something more aggressive because
31:54
Speaker 6: you know, his other interventions are starting to lose force.
31:57
Speaker 6: It achieved the opposite because essentially what people took away
32:01
Speaker 6: from that is that he does not have a plan.
32:05
Speaker 6: He didn't say anything new, and that's reflective of the
32:08
Speaker 6: fact that he doesn't have anything to say. He doesn't
32:11
Speaker 6: have a plan, and that led the markets to all
32:14
Speaker 6: prices shut up again because the expectation that he himself
32:18
Speaker 6: had said was that this would be a statement, a
32:21
Speaker 6: speech in which he would talk about a winding down
32:24
Speaker 6: of the war, and that is not what people took
32:26
Speaker 6: away from that speech.
32:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's very clear from the reaction. Oil
32:29
Speaker 3: markets up some thirteen percent as you and I are speaking. However,
32:34
Speaker 3: what's also important, I think to say is this was
32:38
Speaker 3: obviously intended to Iran, and shortly before Donald Trump's speech,
32:43
Speaker 3: Iran released this letter to America. Let's go ahead and
32:46
Speaker 3: put some of the excerpts up here on the screen.
32:49
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've read it all fully.
32:51
Speaker 3: I'm curious if you could break it down what import
32:54
Speaker 3: the letter actually has in their intention?
32:56
Speaker 1: What do you take away from it?
32:58
Speaker 6: The Iranians are expected Trump to go in with the
33:01
Speaker 6: ground troops. They believe that this was a speech aimed
33:05
Speaker 6: at confusing everyone about his actual intent, but because of
33:10
Speaker 6: the Easter holiday and a couple of days in which
33:13
Speaker 6: the markets will be closed, they believe that he is
33:16
Speaker 6: likely to attack this evening or tomorrow, and that essentially
33:20
Speaker 6: everything that Trump does Ivani is interpreted in the worst
33:24
Speaker 6: possible way. That is partly because of long term paranoia,
33:29
Speaker 6: but also because of recent experience, given everything that Trump
33:34
Speaker 6: has done in terms of bombing them in the midst
33:36
Speaker 6: of negotiations. So I think these statements are two sides
33:40
Speaker 6: of the same coin. On the one hand, you have
33:42
Speaker 6: the President coming out essentially declaring they have no enmity
33:46
Speaker 6: with the American people. This is a long standing framing
33:50
Speaker 6: that they have. They want to put the blame on
33:52
Speaker 6: this on Israel and essentially say, why is the US
33:55
Speaker 6: attacking Ivon. There's no enmity that necessitates this type of conflict.
34:00
Speaker 6: This is all because of Israel. On the other hand,
34:02
Speaker 6: you have Colibov, the Speaker of the Parliament, who's now
34:07
Speaker 6: emerged as one of the last standing most powerful men
34:11
Speaker 6: in that system, who issued a long tweet this morning
34:16
Speaker 6: in which he talked about how he lost his brother
34:19
Speaker 6: in the Iraq Iran war. He himself volunteered at the
34:22
Speaker 6: age of eighteen in that war, and that you know,
34:26
Speaker 6: these are losses that he still feels today. But this
34:29
Speaker 6: is the type of sacrifices Devanians will make for their soil,
34:33
Speaker 6: for their homeland, and that they are ready. And he
34:35
Speaker 6: ends it with saying bring it on. So they're sending
34:37
Speaker 6: two messages. On the one hand, they don't want any enemity.
34:40
Speaker 6: They don't understand why the US is doing this. They
34:42
Speaker 6: believe it's because of Israel. But on the other hand,
34:44
Speaker 6: if the US goes in with troops, the Iranians will
34:47
Speaker 6: fight to the last ounce of their being.
34:52
Speaker 2: You mentioned there are repeated tactic of using negotiations as
34:57
Speaker 2: a ruse to begin wars to assassinate various leaders. We've
35:02
Speaker 2: got another attempted example of Valcan put before up on
35:05
Speaker 2: the screen here and I'm curious for your reaction to
35:09
Speaker 2: this news. So Kamal Karatzi, Iran's former foreign minister, has
35:15
Speaker 2: been seriously wounded following US Israeli strikes in his home
35:18
Speaker 2: that also killed his wife. He'd been overseeing talks with
35:21
Speaker 2: Pakistan to arrange a possible meeting between Iranian officials and
35:26
Speaker 2: JD Vance First of all, do you suspect that this
35:29
Speaker 2: was Israel that conducted this attempted assassination? And then what
35:34
Speaker 2: do you think is the significance of this particular attack.
35:38
Speaker 6: I think it's quite certain that it is Israel that
35:42
Speaker 6: is behind is just as much as Israel has been
35:43
Speaker 6: behind most of these other assassinations. Perhaps there's intelligence that
35:47
Speaker 6: they get from the United States, but they're the ones
35:50
Speaker 6: who have been conducting these assassinations. This is someone who
35:55
Speaker 6: was involved in these talks. I don't know if he
35:57
Speaker 6: was leading it or not, but he is an old
36:00
Speaker 6: policy hand. Even two three years ago he gave a
36:03
Speaker 6: speech at the Duha Forum. He was essentially sent there
36:07
Speaker 6: as an envoy of the then Supreme Leader Khamena. He
36:11
Speaker 6: served as Iran's four minister for many, many years, and
36:15
Speaker 6: within that system, these former officials still tend to play
36:19
Speaker 6: a critical role, and given the fact that so many
36:22
Speaker 6: of them have been assassinated, it means that the remaining
36:24
Speaker 6: ones end up playing in even greater role. So it
36:27
Speaker 6: wouldn't surprise me at all that he has been deeply involved,
36:30
Speaker 6: whether he was overseeing it or not, but deeply involved
36:34
Speaker 6: in this channel initiated by some regional states and currently
36:37
Speaker 6: led by Pakistan. The fact that these Raelis would target
36:40
Speaker 6: him is just a continuation of a long standing pattern
36:44
Speaker 6: in which the Israelis are trying to kill every person
36:47
Speaker 6: that potentially not only could negotiate, but also could bring
36:52
Speaker 6: the Iranian system into a consensus on a deal. It's
36:56
Speaker 6: very important to understand this point. This is a very
36:59
Speaker 6: diverse They have factions, a lot of infighting, etc. It's
37:03
Speaker 6: not just about having someone who has the capability of negotiating,
37:06
Speaker 6: who has the endorsement of the Supreme Leader, but also
37:09
Speaker 6: someone who can build consensus within that system in order
37:13
Speaker 6: to go along with in agreement. So when they killed
37:16
Speaker 6: Alinarijani last week or so, that was someone who played
37:19
Speaker 6: a critical role in getting Conservatives to agree to the
37:22
Speaker 6: JCPA eleven years ago, and he had that ability. He
37:26
Speaker 6: was essentially the consensus maker in chief. Going after Karazi
37:30
Speaker 6: is just a continuation of that pattern. And it's very
37:33
Speaker 6: interesting because Trump himself said, when he was asked who
37:36
Speaker 6: will you negotiate with? He said, perhaps I shouldn't say
37:38
Speaker 6: it because they might get killed, revealing that he himself
37:42
Speaker 6: seems to understand that the Israelis are killing off his
37:46
Speaker 6: counterparts in order to make sure that this war does
37:48
Speaker 6: not end.
37:50
Speaker 3: You know, I'm just thinking through how exactly some sort
37:53
Speaker 3: of deal could be made, and it seems very clear,
37:55
Speaker 3: like you said, that you need a consensus maker with
37:58
Speaker 3: credibility who can speak to the West US, who could
38:00
Speaker 3: speak with some of the hard liners. It seems that
38:02
Speaker 3: we made the job actually much harder because we've killed
38:05
Speaker 3: many of the CONSISTUS makers and or Israel has and
38:07
Speaker 3: we also killed the iatola, really strengthening in the hands
38:10
Speaker 3: of a lot of these hard liners at this point,
38:13
Speaker 3: what do you think they could accept because or would
38:16
Speaker 3: accept really, because it seems very clear from many of
38:20
Speaker 3: the demands, their most maximus demands, it's not really going
38:22
Speaker 3: to happen. Some are seeing that as a negotiation tactic.
38:26
Speaker 3: Are they being serious about that? Like, where do they
38:28
Speaker 3: view themselves internally to the point where they could actually
38:31
Speaker 3: want to make a deal.
38:33
Speaker 6: I think something very significant has happened, which is that
38:37
Speaker 6: the US's position, acceptance, et cetera may no longer matter.
38:43
Speaker 6: And this is thanks to Trump's own statements. Trump is
38:46
Speaker 6: saying that, you know, the strait up hormos is not
38:49
Speaker 6: that important to the US. It's feeding European and nation markets,
38:53
Speaker 6: not American markets. So you know, we don't care about that.
38:56
Speaker 6: If you want to open it, you open it. By
38:59
Speaker 6: saying something like that, perhaps he thinks that he's taking
39:02
Speaker 6: Iran's leverage away from Iran, because Iranians are obviously controlling it,
39:06
Speaker 6: and originally, at least I think they were aimed at
39:10
Speaker 6: using it as a point of leverage in a negotiation
39:12
Speaker 6: with the US. At this point, it seems like they're
39:16
Speaker 6: moving ahead regardless of what the US position is. The
39:20
Speaker 6: US simply cannot do much about this, and they're going
39:22
Speaker 6: to be using their control. They're not going to keep
39:24
Speaker 6: it closed. They're opening it, but they're opening it visa
39:28
Speaker 6: the fees that they will get for transit, and they
39:31
Speaker 6: may keep it close for some hostile countries, but they're
39:34
Speaker 6: essentially looking at the control of the Strait of Hormuz,
39:37
Speaker 6: eventually in a collaboration with Oman, which probably will have
39:41
Speaker 6: a grounding international law. You have several examples of this
39:44
Speaker 6: in some variations. The Danish have for four hundred years
39:48
Speaker 6: taken transit fees for ships going through Urusund. They're opening
39:54
Speaker 6: to the Baltic Sea, and that they will use that
39:57
Speaker 6: in order to recuperate money for all of the damages
40:01
Speaker 6: that have been inflicted on Iran as a result of
40:03
Speaker 6: this war. So as these damages increase, it's not that
40:07
Speaker 6: the Iranians are hardening their position necessarily, It's that they
40:10
Speaker 6: have no choice but to try to find other ways
40:13
Speaker 6: of being able to compensate and pay for the massive
40:17
Speaker 6: cost of reconstruction that will follow this war that increasingly
40:21
Speaker 6: is taking an Israeli character. And I think this is
40:24
Speaker 6: very important to understand. I've been very critical of the
40:27
Speaker 6: Iraq War, but the United States did not deliberately intentionally
40:31
Speaker 6: bomb universities or pharmaceutical factories in Iraq. That's what the
40:37
Speaker 6: Israelis do in Lebanon, That's what they have done in Gaza,
40:41
Speaker 6: destroyed almost every university there, and that is what they're
40:44
Speaker 6: starting to do in Iran as well. Just today they
40:48
Speaker 6: bombed a very important pharmaceut or medical research institute that
40:53
Speaker 6: was built together with the French ward and one hundred
40:55
Speaker 6: years ago. And the United States is now complicit in
40:59
Speaker 6: this Israeli form of warfare that is actually very different
41:03
Speaker 6: from how the US is conducted war. Again, you know,
41:05
Speaker 6: I'm very critical of the Iraq War and other things.
41:07
Speaker 6: But this is just way beyond that. This is just
41:10
Speaker 6: an absolute destruction. And again, because Trump doesn't appear to
41:14
Speaker 6: have a plan, by default, he has following the Israeli's lead.
41:18
Speaker 6: And this is also what we see when he says
41:19
Speaker 6: that he's going to bomb the Iranians back to the
41:21
Speaker 6: Stone Age. That is an Israeli goal. They don't care
41:24
Speaker 6: about the political fallout. They just want to destroy as
41:27
Speaker 6: much of Ivan's infrastructure industrial base as possible in order
41:31
Speaker 6: to eliminate Iran as a geopolitical player in the region.
41:34
Speaker 6: What comes afterwards, what it does for the regional stability,
41:37
Speaker 6: is of a far lesser concern to these radis. That
41:40
Speaker 6: is not the American goals or interest in this war.
41:44
Speaker 6: But because Trump doesn't have a plan, he's just following
41:47
Speaker 6: what these Radis were.
41:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think, in fairness, the ideology of
41:52
Speaker 2: Pete Hegseth in particular, but Trump to some extent as well,
41:56
Speaker 2: is very consistent with that Israeli ideology. I mean, one
41:59
Speaker 2: of the things Pete Hegseth is known for is going
42:01
Speaker 2: to bat with for convicted war criminals and trying to
42:03
Speaker 2: get them off the hook, and posturing constantly like any
42:06
Speaker 2: sort of rules of engagement are basically like liberal woke nonsense.
42:10
Speaker 2: So you know, Steven Miller articulated this view, I think
42:13
Speaker 2: most clearly when he said effectively like power is power,
42:16
Speaker 2: that's what really rules the world, and that's the way
42:18
Speaker 2: we're going to operate. We're going to throw our weight around,
42:20
Speaker 2: and certainly Trump, as sort of like his mob boss
42:23
Speaker 2: style of leadership, he goes along with that too. So
42:27
Speaker 2: you know, we already were complicit in the genocide in
42:29
Speaker 2: Gaza throughout the Biden and Trump administrations, and now you know,
42:33
Speaker 2: we're more than happy to go along with the Israeli
42:36
Speaker 2: approach of quote unquote bombing them back to the Stone Age.
42:40
Speaker 2: And so that leads me to wonder, treat to if
42:42
Speaker 2: what we're going to end up with here is adopting
42:45
Speaker 2: effectively the Israeli quote unquote mow the lawn approach, where
42:50
Speaker 2: every now and again we go in and bomb them
42:52
Speaker 2: back to the Stone Age and make some noises about, oh,
42:55
Speaker 2: they're pursuing this weapon, and they're pursuing that weapon. We
42:57
Speaker 2: can't allow. We've got to go in and you know,
42:59
Speaker 2: kill a bunch more people. Is that the direction that
43:02
Speaker 2: we could be heading for here absolutely.
43:04
Speaker 6: First of all, you're totally right about your previous comment
43:08
Speaker 6: that the Israelization of American warfare could not happen without
43:12
Speaker 6: the consent of decision makers in the United States, and
43:16
Speaker 6: those decision makers already have shown prior to this an
43:19
Speaker 6: inclination and going in that direction. And I've also heard
43:22
Speaker 6: even before during the Gods of What that there were
43:24
Speaker 6: people in the Pentagon that were rather happy to see
43:28
Speaker 6: the Israelis deliberately destroy the norms around the use of
43:33
Speaker 6: force because that would open up the US's ability to
43:36
Speaker 6: conduct the potential war with China in a much different
43:39
Speaker 6: way than the otherwise would. So undoubtedly there are people
43:43
Speaker 6: in Washington who have been quite favorable in going in
43:47
Speaker 6: this direction in the first place. So you're right about that.
43:50
Speaker 6: On your second point, Trump has already admitted this. He
43:54
Speaker 6: said that in interviews two days ago that he's going
43:57
Speaker 6: to bomb them back to the Stone Age, and then
43:59
Speaker 6: if they read, the next president will have to go
44:02
Speaker 6: in and bomb them again. That is mowing the law.
44:06
Speaker 6: That is the very essence of mowing the law. And
44:09
Speaker 6: this is precisely why previous presidents actually didn't do it,
44:13
Speaker 6: because all of the gaming show that this is the
44:16
Speaker 6: situation we would end up in and as a result,
44:18
Speaker 6: we would be in a state of eternal warfare with Iran,
44:22
Speaker 6: which is something everyone else, including Trump in his first term,
44:25
Speaker 6: decided would be a terrible situation to be in. Now,
44:29
Speaker 6: not only are we there, Trump seems to be embracing
44:32
Speaker 6: it as if this is what he wanted all along.
44:34
Speaker 3: So then last question, sir, you said the Iranians are
44:37
Speaker 3: expecting a ground invasion.
44:38
Speaker 1: How likely do you think that that is.
44:41
Speaker 6: Look, it's impossible to be able to predict what's going
44:46
Speaker 6: to happen because predictions require some sense of some assumption
44:52
Speaker 6: of rationality in the White House. And then based on
44:55
Speaker 6: our rationality, you make some sort of an assumption, here's
44:58
Speaker 6: an assessment of what direction that would go in. If
45:01
Speaker 6: there was rationality, we would never have started this war
45:03
Speaker 6: in the first place. It's not just a miscalculation, it's
45:06
Speaker 6: a complete misread of the situation that brought Trump into
45:09
Speaker 6: this war and listening to these ratings, So at this point,
45:12
Speaker 6: would it be utterly irrational, suicidal to go in with
45:16
Speaker 6: ground troops societally in terms of destroying Trump's presidency? Absolutely?
45:21
Speaker 6: Is that a reason as to why he wouldn't do
45:22
Speaker 6: it based on what we've seen in the last couple
45:25
Speaker 6: of years. Is absolutely not a guarantee that he won't
45:27
Speaker 6: do it. Vannians are essentially assuming that's going to happen.
45:30
Speaker 6: They're preparing for this, and they will be in a
45:32
Speaker 6: position in which they will then be able to They
45:36
Speaker 6: will take huge losses. Undoubtedly much more will be destroyed,
45:39
Speaker 6: but they will be able to inflict a certain type
45:42
Speaker 6: of damage that so far they have not been successful
45:44
Speaker 6: in doing, which is to kill a large number of
45:46
Speaker 6: American soldiers. And once that happens, it will be very
45:50
Speaker 6: difficult for me to see that Trump's space. Will continue
45:53
Speaker 6: to trust Trump on this one, continue to believe that
45:56
Speaker 6: this was worthwhile, continue to believe that this is a
45:58
Speaker 6: winning war. And that's part of the reason I think
46:00
Speaker 6: he will destroy his own presidency if he goes down
46:02
Speaker 6: that path. That, however, is not a guarantee that he won't.
46:06
Speaker 2: All right, Well, doctor Tree to Parsi, You're always grateful
46:08
Speaker 2: for your analysis. Thank you so much for joining us
46:09
Speaker 2: this morning.