In this episode, we discuss the recent strike on Iran's nuclear sites and what it could mean for the future of the Middle East and the region as a whole. We also talk about the Iranian regime's reaction to the strike and what they might do in the future.
00:00:03.000And how do we survive without an Iranian state sponsor?
00:00:08.000So what you could end up seeing is a complete reset, strategically speaking, of what we've known for decades, or many years, but certainly decades, across the Middle East.
00:00:28.000There are the other two big players in this.
00:00:30.000China gets a phenomenal amount of oil from Iran.
00:00:33.000China has got a huge investment in Iran.
00:00:37.000Some could arguably say that some of the things that China has done by Iran is really part of its larger Belt and Road initiative around the world.
00:00:47.000China's gonna be kind of looking Because all of a sudden, if there's a, for example, a new regime comes in and it's a pro-Western regime that eventually dominates, and I'm not saying it's going to be democracy or anything like that.
00:01:08.000We love to say, oh, they'll come in, it'll be democracy, and they'll be wonderful, and they're going to copy the Constitution of the United States or something like that.
00:01:15.000I'm not going to believe that we're going to pull something like that off.
00:01:18.000But you could end up seeing a more pro-Western regime that comes into power.
00:01:42.000And then Russia has just lost one of its core allies, one of its support beams, sending things like ballistic missiles and drones up to Russia.
00:01:55.000And so they're going to have to reevaluate where they are, geostrategically, and they would be in a very difficult situation, albeit with one thing I should mention, that with this war, oil prices have spiked, which has actually increased the amount of revenue going into Russia from oil sales, so in the short run.
00:02:18.000They've actually kind of profited from this war in terms of oil revenue, even though they've been pretty much cut off from any other stuff or any other support coming from Iran because of all the airstrikes and stuff.
00:02:31.000They've actually, from a revenue standpoint, they were in desperate straits, and all of a sudden they have a lot more money that they can spend on warfighting in Ukraine.
00:02:42.000This is what we heard from President Trump on social media right after it happened.
00:02:47.000This, in fact, was the announcement about the strike itself.
00:02:50.000We expect the president to speak on camera from the White House at the top of the hour in 14 minutes.
00:02:56.000He says, we have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.
00:03:05.000All planes are now outside of Iran airspace.
00:03:08.000A full payload of bombs was dropped on the primary site, Fordow.
00:03:13.000We've now since learned that it was six B-2 bombers, or excuse me, three B-2s that dropped six bunker busters on Fordow.
00:03:23.000Trump says all planes are safely on their way home.
00:03:27.000The president says congratulations to our great American warriors.
00:03:30.000There is not another military in the world that could have done this, he says.
00:04:11.000I think it's a way of communication he's very comfortable with.
00:04:14.000And when he puts that in there, that's a message aimed directly at the Iranian regime, which is a way of saying, hey, look, you need to come to the negotiating table and figure this out.
00:04:27.000And, you know, basically, you know, the door's open if you choose to go this way.
00:04:33.000The fact the Iranian regime played games with that 60-day window where they could have negotiated something.
00:04:41.000And of course, the Iranians, they said, nope, unless we're allowed to keep doing everything we want to do, then we won't agree to anything.
00:04:49.000And of course now they paid that price for that position.
00:04:53.000And for the, and you have to remember for the Iranian regime, over the top combative, If they weren't able to say death to America and pledge to the destruction of Israel, they would have a very small vocabulary because that's pretty much what they say all the time.
00:05:36.000And so the time for peace, that's very difficult.
00:05:40.000And again, if they agree to everything, again, they're going to have to look to the Iranian people who are going to look at them and say, so exactly what are you again?
00:07:02.000Because I called Kirk Elliott Precious Metals, and I learned how adding gold and silver to my portfolio is one of the safest ways to not just grow my finances, but to also protect them from the uncertainty of the future.
00:07:19.000Call economist Kirk Elliott at 720-605-3900 or schedule a call online at kepm.com slash loomer to learn how you can safely grow your retirement portfolio with precious metals.
00:07:35.000To see if the Americans would get directly involved in the conflict.
00:07:39.000And even up in the last few hours, I was talking with current and former sources, trying to get an understanding of when this might happen.
00:07:45.000And at 1:55 local time, one source said rumors Trump gave the word supposed to be happening now.
00:07:52.000We were working on tracking it down and the president taking to True Social to say the Americans did indeed strike three separate Iranian nuclear facilities, including the Fordow nuclear facility deep underground outside of the Iranian capital of Tehran.
00:08:07.000The bottom line here is that people are talking about enrichment.
00:08:10.000They understand that this decision was made because the Iranians were increasing their uranium enrichment capabilities and increasing the purity closer and closer to weapons grade material.
00:08:21.000And the concern was that We've seen over the past nine days the country has the ability to strike major population centers here in Israel with ballistic missiles.
00:08:35.000So you can imagine that having a nuclear warhead that could ultimately be attached to a ballistic missile would clearly be a direct threat to the Jewish state.
00:08:42.000And that was why the Israelis said that they made the decision to start these strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities and against top IRGC officials.
00:08:52.000Tonight, President Trump ordering these strikes against the Iranian regime's nuclear program because there was no off-ramp for diplomacy at this point.
00:09:00.000And so this is a historic moment in the Middle East tonight.
00:09:04.000And again, an opportunity for the region, as the president laid out in his statement, for peace in the future.
00:09:09.000Because this is a region that understands peace through strength.
00:09:14.000Trey Yingst reporting earlier today with Brett Baer.
00:09:32.000The U.S. striking in Iran proper, three different places.
00:09:37.000Well, first off, since 1979, this is the first time we've ever struck Iran, certainly in this way.
00:09:44.000We've actually launched these major strikes, you know, Tomahawk missiles, taking out nuclear facilities.
00:09:49.000And then B-2 bombers, strategic bombers.
00:09:52.000You've got to remember, they're not just planes.
00:09:55.000These are planes that are designed to carry nuclear weapons.
00:09:57.000You know, this is the plane that we use when Armageddon is upon us, if you will.
00:10:03.000They didn't have nuclear weapons, obviously.
00:10:05.000they had these unique massive ordinance penetrators that have been so much focus of interest these GBU-57s that burrowed deep within the earth to destroy these underground And it's its unique capability.
00:10:31.000And the delivery system is a B-2 bomber.
00:10:34.000Again, the only thing that the U.S. has anywhere in the world.
00:10:36.000And we brought all of this to basically eliminate the ability of Iran to make a nuclear weapon.
00:10:44.000Now, that's pretty darn historic, because Iran has been playing with trying to Build a nuclear weapon for a very long time, for decades, and we have now kinetically taken that off.
00:11:10.000Some would say ominous that that's taken place, but it was a calculated risk.
00:11:19.000And I think some, depending on what happens in Iran, depending on what happens with the regime there, the longevity of the regime there, historians may come back and look at this as a big turning point in terms of Iranian history.
00:11:37.000And by the way, if Iran ceases to be this nemesis in the region, Ceases to be this fomenter of terrorism, not just in the Middle East,
00:11:52.000but terrorism all over the world, but particularly in the Middle East, that's been supporting all of these extremist Shiite militia groups, Hezbollah, Hamas, was basically behind the October 7th attack being able to take place.
00:12:14.000If this is, and of course, not to mention the Houthis, you know, basically stopping shipping in one of the globe's most important sea lanes for the amount of time that they had.
00:12:28.000If this is taken off, it changes the entire strategic picture of the Middle East because Iran is so important as a provider of oil and also in terms of location for China.
00:12:43.000Because they're such an important supporter of Russia in providing them drones and ballistic missiles and everything else.
00:12:51.000This could be one of those pivotal points where we see a big change, you know, the second, third order effects of what just happened.
00:13:00.000And we could say this completely changed the map across the world in terms of strategic balance of power.
00:13:40.000They've tried multiple times on the streets, you know, to basically overthrow, basically create enough social gravitas to overthrow a regime.
00:13:52.000They have not been able to pull that off.
00:13:53.000And the regime has been absolutely horrific in its response, sweeping people off the streets, doing these executions, very public way of making a point, imprisoning political dissenters, They're also this regime that does not allow any sort of free elections or anything we consider.
00:14:23.000They scope in the elections so only the parties or the candidates that they will handpick are ever allowed to show up on the ballot, and then they pretty much put their thumb on the scale to make sure.
00:14:34.000That whomever they want is the person that's elected.
00:14:37.000And then over the government is this, you know, the supreme leader and his council, which are all a bunch of theocrats that basically control the country.
00:15:05.000That's their two favorite bumper sticker phrases.
00:15:08.000That's what they kind of identify with.
00:15:11.000And this constant, never-ending struggle, some would say war, if you will, although technically in Arabic, well, I should say jihad is an Arabic term, and jihad actually means struggle.
00:15:26.000It doesn't always mean war per se, although when we say jihad, we normally mean war.
00:15:30.000And I should mention that Arabic is not the Badan language in Iran.
00:15:36.000It's actually Farsi, so maybe it's kind of a moot point.
00:15:40.000But anyway, they have kind of built their brand on this thing, that they have this constant struggle or conflict, whatever, with Israel and the West.
00:15:49.000And part of that goes back into the history of Iran.
00:15:53.000The Shah of Iran, when he came into power in 1953, Kind of the U.S. and Great Britain were behind getting them into power because there was another guy in there who we felt was too favorable or was basically leaning towards the Soviet Union, different era, Cold War.
00:16:10.000I don't want to get into all the details.
00:16:11.000But the feeling was that the U.S. basically fomented a coup to put the Shah into power.
00:16:18.000They put the Shah out of power and they've aimed everything at the West.
00:16:21.000They've been anti-Western the entire time.
00:16:28.000And so right now, all the things that underlie that regime, all the things that underlie has now taken, the thing they've always pointed at is we might be able to develop a nuclear weapon.
00:16:40.000We might be a member of the nuclear club.
00:16:42.000We might be, quote, invincible because we have nuclear capability.
00:16:47.000That's what they've kind of held out for a very long period of time.
00:16:50.000Well, in one fell swoop, we went in there and eliminated their capability to do that, as near as we can tell right now.
00:16:57.000And that's going to have, you know, along with Israel literally controlling the skies over Iran, that has, you know, some significant impact on the ability of this regime to maintain itself in power.
00:17:31.000We don't know if he's going to come out any second now, any minute now, but I'm going to keep you on the line here, Hal, until we see President Trump walk out.
00:17:41.000Let's ask one more time, what exactly are you going to be looking to hear from the president?
00:17:48.000This is going to be the first time we've heard him on camera since we heard about this.
00:17:52.000What we've heard from him on social media is that we have completed what he calls very successful attacks on three nuclear sites in Iran.
00:18:01.000that includes Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise.
00:18:14.000Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity and energy.
00:18:27.000Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success.
00:18:35.000Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.
00:18:41.000Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace.
00:18:45.000If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.
00:18:49.000For 40 years, Iran has been saying death to America, death to Israel.
00:18:55.000They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs.
00:19:03.000We lost over a thousand people and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate.
00:19:12.000In particular, so many were killed by their general, Qasem Soleimani.
00:19:18.000I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen.
00:19:24.000I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.
00:19:29.000We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before.
00:19:34.000And we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel.
00:19:38.000I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they've done.
00:19:43.000And most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades.
00:19:58.000Hopefully, we will no longer need their services in this capacity.
00:22:31.000Because I call Kirk Elliott Precious Metals, and I learned how adding gold and silver to my portfolio is one of the safest ways to not just grow my finances, but to also protect them from the uncertainty of the future.