In this episode, we take a look back at the events leading up to the Iran crisis, including the Senate vote on Gaius Julius Caesar's assassination of Julius Caesar and the media s reaction to it. We also discuss the impact of Iran's recent strikes on the Strait of Hormuz and the impact on the global economy.
00:07:37.960And it basically shows that President Trump doesn't have anything concrete in terms of assistance right now.
00:07:43.820It's interesting that China is put into all of this because we had two Indian tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz
00:07:50.880that the Iranians say have cleared to pass through the Strait with the caveat to use payment in Chinese yuan.
00:07:58.860We know that China and Iran have a longstanding relationship.
00:08:01.660China has been buying around 80 percent of all of Iran's oil.
00:08:05.680It's interesting that President Trump would put China in in terms of sending warships.
00:08:09.660But he's banking on the fact that you've got Asia and China really reliance on oil that passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
00:08:16.360And then the other big thing that happened over the weekend is the targeting of Harg Island, critical key infrastructure, and Iran vowing to retaliate specifically here in the UAE.
00:08:26.600I can say that the Strait is not closed, but it is only closed to American, Israeli, you know, ships and tankers and not to others.
00:08:39.660This morning, President Trump is calling on other countries to help secure safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
00:08:47.560Trump specifically called on China, France, the U.K., and others to help.
00:08:52.560The shipping traffic has been at a virtual standstill in the Strait, caused gas prices to spike.
00:08:57.320In a new interview with MS Now, Iran's foreign minister disputed the claim that the Strait is closed.
00:09:03.520You're in the middle of a war. Can't they put their politics aside for a second?
00:12:02.360I have 100% facts that they, that Iranian regime used against American bases and against our Middle East, in Middle East, I mean, and Middle East neighbors of Iran.
00:12:49.240And also they told my intelligence told me that they said if Europe and the United States can help Ukraine with intelligence in this war, it's meant that Russia can help Iranian regime.
00:13:12.140And you see that it's not a big secret.
00:13:14.560When it comes to Marines, I think the mobilizing Marines, and here's some of the Wall Street Journal reporting, we're seeing that where this came out just in the last day, that he was given the warnings and thought that Iran would capitulate before it even got to this point.
00:13:31.560But now we're to a place of moving in Marines.
00:13:33.980What moving Marines in, this rapid response unit, gives commanders what options?
00:13:41.300I'm not sure it gives them any real options.
00:13:43.340and it puts people puts the marines in a position where they're going to be trapped if things go
00:13:49.020badly uh you know i had a grandfather who was a marine in world war one and two uncles who were
00:13:54.540marines in uh korea and after so it's it's a problem and you know we had a lot of marines
00:14:02.140on board nimitz when i was there we part of the air wing we always had marines run the brig and
00:14:07.100do all sorts of other things they're wonderful people but they're not enough of them and that's
00:19:01.920Sunday, 15 March, Year of the Lord, 2026.
00:19:04.700Welcome to the special Sunday edition of The War Room.
00:19:07.480want to thank real america's voice and the team here at the war room putting that on in that
00:19:10.820magnificent cold open which got us through the last 24 hours and also the lessons down passed
00:19:17.960down through the ages of the assassination of julius caesar i have sam faddis and jack basovic
00:19:23.740two intelligence experts to kick it off uh sam faddis uh make it make sense to us because we're
00:19:31.080in the middle of the fog of war right now uh obviously this the war as we've talked about
00:19:36.320now for the last week the center of gravity of the war shifted to the persian gulf to our arab
00:19:41.300allies will they stay in the fight uh into the straits of her moves and now the president calling
00:19:46.480for uh other allies to join in the fight to keep the straits of her moves and the oil flowing
00:19:53.620i don't quite understand why we are allowing even ships going to india with oil that they're
00:20:02.220specifically saying are going to take chinese currency in instead of petrodollars a u.s currency
00:20:08.460for settlement because people have to understand the iranians are in full-scale economic warfare
00:20:15.980against the united states of america in the uh in the west sam fattis your observations as we kick
00:20:22.680off sunday well look if you look at this war from the conventional perspective right we are not only
00:20:31.540winning, we are winning overwhelmingly. The Iranian Navy, which wasn't much to begin with,
00:20:38.880doesn't exist. Its Air Force, which wasn't much to begin with, is gone. No doubt their leadership
00:20:45.840has been severely hit. Missiles have been severely hit. But as you noted, the Iranians aren't
00:20:53.120approaching this conflict as fighting back with us. They're not fighting us in any conventional
00:20:59.860sense. They're fighting us. This is asymmetric warfare at its best, which means not just
00:21:07.920that they're using low-cost things like drones and so forth and flexing their proxy forces,
00:21:15.240which obviously they're doing, but the center of gravity of their response has been to shut
00:21:20.580off at this point effectively all the oil and all of the natural gas coming out of the Persian Gulf.
00:21:28.560I mean, there are a handful of tankers leaking out, but they're inconsequential.
00:21:33.180So that's about 20% of the world's oil and about 20% of the world's natural gas.
00:21:41.400There is a temporary workaround because tankers are now flooding into the Red Sea to go to the other side of Saudi Arabia at the end of a 700 mile long pipeline and take on board oil there.
00:21:58.560the catch to that is to get in and out.
00:22:02.480Will that bring, by the way, that pipeline is 5 million barrels a day
00:22:07.960if it goes all the way across Saudi Arabia.
00:22:10.680Will that bring the Houthis into the fight?
00:22:12.920Because you have the Red Sea, you actually have a tighter choke point
00:22:15.700right there at the Red Sea where the Houthis, and let's be blunt,
00:22:19.120the Houthis who are these tough mountain folk have beaten the Egyptians,
00:22:22.780the British, the Saudis, UAE, and hey, kind of fought the Americans
00:22:27.760to a standstill last year um they uh that 700 mile pipeline it gets you five million barrels
00:22:35.640a day i think but it's it brings it brings the hutis into the fight to close that which is
00:22:40.140actually a bigger choke point than hormuz correct you're you're absolutely correct the pipeline at
00:22:47.040this point is pretty much maxed out you got last i checked as of yesterday 30 tankers in yanbu
00:22:55.860taken on oil they all had to get there they had to run past the houthis
00:23:01.780they were allowed into the red sea the houthis didn't shoot at them now every one of those
00:23:06.580tankers has to run under the huti guns if you will to get out of the red sea and these guys
00:23:12.500have drones they got suicide boats they got cruise missiles they got ballistic missiles and
00:23:20.260i mean let's be real you're not talking about them taking on the u.s navy and sinking
00:23:25.220warships, you're talking about them hitting huge oil tankers moving through a narrow strait. So
00:23:32.420that's a real problem. In other words, the Iranians via their Houthi allies
00:23:38.100can shut off that escape valve anytime they want. The Houthis have already said they're coming in
00:23:43.960to fight. The CIA Naval Intelligence, the Department of Wars Strategy Group,
00:23:52.120understands anytime you talk about this area the straits of her moves is a standard thing you plan
00:23:58.300for right also the red sea which is the entrance to the to the suez canal um yesterday we said when
00:24:05.620we did the show the first thing we talked about was this article in the wall street journal
00:24:09.100that looked like it was some of the military senior levels and i don't think this thing's
00:24:13.980been refuted poster is going to join us in a second but cnn as we knew was going to play it
00:24:18.000all day of this split between the pentagon and the president do you buy that uh do you buy that
00:24:24.420sam fattis because this is a part of it although you're just getting the marine ready group over
00:24:29.860there now you're calling for other navies to pitch in here although the president is saying hey the
00:24:36.440iranians reached out and they're talking a deal and president trump saying the deal's not good
00:24:40.440enough he's the master negotiator your thoughts on that part of it sam well i got a couple of
00:24:47.080observation, Steve. I don't know exactly what the calculus is at the top. In other words,
00:24:52.560who precisely advised the president before the decision was made to start this war?
00:24:58.660But it is hard to imagine that the U.S. military did not anticipate these moves and did not advise
00:25:07.320what was required to deal with them. There's nothing, I mean, for the average American who
00:25:11.780has other things to do than worry about the Houthis, maybe this is all news. It isn't news
00:25:17.220to American intelligence or the United States Navy or all the folks that have operated there
00:25:21.440for years. I mean, good Lord, we've been in a, not so long ago, we were in a protracted shooting
00:25:26.540war with the Houthis, the U.S. Navy and the Houthis. So this was transparently obvious.
00:25:31.740In regard to ending the conflict, my concern at this point is increasingly that we keep looking
00:25:39.120at this as when we're going to decide to end the war. Well, there are two sides in the war
00:25:45.280and I'm not quite sure why we believe the Iranians at this stage are in a hurry to end it.
00:25:55.080I mean, they have absorbed, we've flattened their conventional military structure
00:26:00.300and this is now a matter of them firing drones and energizing surrogate forces and
00:26:07.820potentially turning on terrorism. Well, they could do that for a very long time. In other words,
00:26:13.760why do they have to let the Strait of Hormuz open? Why don't they just,
00:26:18.180no, why don't they just say it's closed for the foreseeable future?
00:26:24.340Poe, so jump in here because what Sam brings up, the Israelis are saying, and I think reports are,
00:26:29.340last night was one of the hardest poundings that Tehran took, principally, I think, by Israeli
00:26:35.020air assets uh that can on the conventional side they are getting pounded command and controlling
00:26:41.020until they've got a lot less uh they're hitting with particularly on the missile basis your
00:26:45.600thoughts about all it's particularly president trump saying hey they're reaching out there's
00:26:49.420no deal uh not good enough uh it kind of sounds like we're back to unconditional surrender or
00:26:54.740some variation on that theme sir steve the word that i would use at this point is we're at a
00:27:00.460crossroads. And this is the crossroads where President Trump is in the decision seat. He is
00:27:05.540in the pilot seat deciding on which way to go. Does he want to go down this walk down the
00:27:12.400escalation ladder or does he want to increase it? Does he want to try to reach out to this
00:27:17.340new Ayatollah who we're told did not have a good relationship with his father, was not in good
00:27:22.320standing with his father, according to these reports of there to be believed? Or does President
00:27:27.500Trump, as we've seen, does he want to put the squeeze on Karg Island? Does he want to send
00:27:32.320that Marine Expeditionary Unit, the 31st, over there as a way to ratchet up the pressure? Or
00:27:38.760perhaps look at, there are certainly implements that could be used from the air to neutralize
00:27:43.980Karg Island and leave many of the oil infrastructure systems intact, but at the same
00:27:49.980time neutralize their ability to send it out to port, and there easily could be done from the air.
00:27:56.220You just you strike the peers, that sort of thing. And it's it's something that the U.S. has not done yet, something Israel has not done yet, but certainly is an option.
00:28:05.520And President Trump indicating that very directly. What do you mean? Give me that before we go to break.
00:28:12.120What do you mean indicating that very, very directly? He's been he's been talking about Carg Island.
00:28:16.980He's been sharing images of Carg Island. He's been. Yeah. He ordered the strikes on, I guess, was Friday night right after markets closed, by the way.
00:28:24.780to take the military island the middle he said military only to take it the military yeah and
00:28:30.460so you're saying that he's indicating that hey if he's got to take in uh they're going to hit
00:28:35.540some tripwire where he's going to go seize their essential uh oil infrastructure to export oil
00:28:43.000out of the uh to load up the the tankers and export oil out of the uh out of the straits
00:28:47.680correct uh seize or neutralize i mean you hit you hit the pier it's going to be hard to get that
00:28:53.420well to market oh wow okay let's take a short break we got sam faddis i'm gonna ask sam and
00:29:00.580jack to think about it and come back uh you heard zelinski right there he laid down hard on the uh
00:29:07.420on the russians that the russians are backing with drones intelligence targeting options
00:29:11.620where's the ccp scott besant's in paris and negotiating the state visit of president trump
00:29:19.280which i still don't get we're gonna talk a lot about that we're gonna have some chinese experts
00:29:22.740on New Federal State Jan Yelnekik from Epoch Times
00:29:27.300to talk about the global implications of this shooting war
00:29:31.420in the Middle East, in Iran, and particularly in the Persian Gulf.
00:29:36.680Now more than ever, maybe you want to find out about,
00:30:09.920We're coming out with an eighth free installment, seven edition, seven installments are in the Patriots edition, eighth free installment coming online.
00:36:49.160So what they're doing is they're working pinprick by pinprick to whittle down that defensive
00:36:54.600posture and to wait to the point when and once those air interceptor missiles are worn
00:37:00.160down, what they're hoping for is that's when they're going to send more of their high
00:37:04.120powered large warhead ballistic missiles at those same targets okay so you have the and i know you
00:37:12.220got to bounce you're going to do some other hits on media today so i'm going to get as much out of
00:37:15.840you as i have the time and sam's going to stick with me for a few minutes um you've got uh shelby
00:37:22.880talcott at the uh at semaphore has a scoop an exclusive that the israelis are running out of
00:37:29.480now missiles. You've got the Israelis saying they're planning on the most massive ground
00:37:34.280invasion they've had in Lebanon in 20 years, since 2006. I think the French are also trying
00:37:39.360to step in, given their relationship with Lebanon, and try to be some sort of negotiator
00:37:44.580here to try to get a stand down there. The expanding nature of this war, because Pete
00:37:49.320told us the other day the war is not expanding, but you look at that front in Israel, it seems
00:37:54.380to be expanding but the israelis who are unloading every chance they get on the uh on the iranians
00:38:00.440seem to have a uh to have a uh a missile shortage which i think gets the point that this thing's a
00:38:06.660lot more vicious than is being allowed you know we're not seeing some of the footage we're not
00:38:10.680seeing social media there's really a clamp down on everything on the u.s side definitely on the
00:38:16.080arab side and on the israeli side sir well that's exactly right and in fact the the british embassy
00:38:22.860in in the UAE has had to come out and remind their citizens there that the UAE does not have
00:38:29.740freedom of speech, freedom of posting on social media. Neither does the UK, by the way, for the
00:38:34.600record. But to remind them that there are laws on the books in the UAE that if you share footage of
00:38:42.080drone strikes, missile strikes, things that hit Dubai, whether you're at the Emirates, that Abu
00:38:47.600Dabi that that you can be arrested. And in fact, we have seen charges on individuals for posting
00:38:53.420those images similar to what we saw in Ukraine, which, by the way, just mentioned on that side
00:38:59.140that while nobody's paying attention, Russia is gearing up for their summer offensive, a new
00:39:03.040summer offensive in Ukraine while they are sort of given a free hand while everyone's focus is on
00:39:08.460the Middle East. And oh, by the way, their stockpiles of resources are ever increasing because
00:39:14.180as the world turns away from middle eastern oil and lng who's left of course the russians and the
00:39:21.820price is going up and up and up so putin is looking for a massive summer campaign this year
00:39:27.300jack before you bounce uh the next 24 hours before we talk to you tomorrow on the show
00:39:34.220you're covering this on everybody gets your social media particularly your twitter feed
00:39:37.620uh last night was another horrific night of uh of warfare your your thoughts what we can see in
00:39:44.080the next day or two? Well, like I said, Steve, President Trump is right now at a crossroads.
00:39:49.400His decision points are either to declare victory, whether these negotiations come through with
00:39:55.680Iranians or to take the other road. And the other road is increase the escalation. I would say he's
00:40:01.980certainly putting putting out feelers in every single direction here. He's signaling strength.
00:40:07.280He's signaling dominance. This is what he does when he gets into one of these situations. And
00:40:11.780he's waiting to see how Iran responds and he is going to take that response into his decision and
00:40:17.260we'll find out in the next 24 hours which road he chooses. Jack where do people follow you Human
00:40:23.820Events Daily obviously on Real America's Voice after the Charlie Kirk show every day but where
00:40:29.780do they go on social media because your Twitter feed is vital in this time. Well thank you Steve
00:40:36.760I appreciate that. We're up at Human Events Daily on Substack or excuse me, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, any place people can get their downloads.
00:40:45.620We're putting up the daily sit reps. We've also got some a little back and forth in the Charlie Kirk murder case on Friday.
00:40:53.080Our our outlet, Human Events, was was brought up in court by Tyler Robinson's lawyers.
00:40:59.140They did not like our open letter demanding full camera access in that case.
00:41:04.780And we've released a response and we have told the we've told the lawyers there that we are more than willing to defend our stance in court if they so choose.
00:41:17.120Jack Posobiec, thanks for taking time away from the family.
00:43:59.600Set his sights on one main priority ahead of the midterms, passing the SAVE Act.
00:44:04.940It's a voting bill he openly argues will guarantee midterm election victories for Republicans.
00:44:10.680It would impose new hurdles on voting, like requiring proof of citizenship in the form of a U.S. passport or birth certificate to register to vote.
00:44:18.180Anyone who has changed their name, most commonly women who change their names during marriage, would need additional paperwork to verify their identity.
00:44:27.940The bill would also require photo ID every time someone votes.
00:44:32.660And in a newly added provision, states would have to turn over their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security, which would run names through federal databases to identify possible non-citizens.
00:44:43.700Watchdog groups have already flagged that those systems are rife with errors.
00:44:48.860Voting advocates warn the impact would be massive.
00:44:51.860More than 21 million Americans lack ready access to documents proving their citizenship,
00:44:57.420and roughly half of Americans don't even have a passport.
00:45:01.940Okay, important update on the Save America Act and the effort to get it passed.
00:45:37.580We're going to debate it for an extended period of time before filing cloture.
00:45:42.040And in my view, at least, I don't want to speak for anyone else.
00:45:44.940This bill needs to remain on the Senate floor before we file cloture on the bill for as long as it takes to get it done.
00:45:53.180Now, the fact that Leader Thune and his office have been willing to work with us on this and they appear open to a variation of that is a good thing.
00:46:00.800So let's let's keep up the momentum. Let's encourage them to continue to do this.
00:46:05.640Let's put the bill on the floor. Let's make those who want to filibuster speak and keep it on there as long as possible.