00:06:26.040they're not totally distinct. There is overlap. There are areas where the United States and
00:06:30.500Israel's interests are aligned, but they're beginning to diverge. Looking at those numbers,
00:06:36.340I have to think if I were the prime minister of Israel, I would do everything that I could do0.99
00:06:42.240right now to take out the Iranian regime. We talk about the Iran problem as losing our ability to1.00
00:06:48.880stop their nuclear program. You know, time is running out. If we wait a day longer, then they're0.96
00:06:53.440going to reach a point of immunity such that our missiles can't hit them anymore, such that even
00:06:58.020if they don't have a nuclear weapon today, they're going to get one in a year because we're not able
00:07:01.780to stop the program. We talk about that. The window is closing. The same fact applies to Iran
00:07:09.520for the state of Israel. The window is closing because the United States is Israel's backer on0.83
00:07:14.000the international stage. The state of Israel doesn't really have that many friends internationally,
00:07:18.180and the United States is the global hegemon, so they're the ones who back Israel. Now, the U.S.0.85
00:07:23.060has an interest in stopping Iran's nuclear program. I know some people deny that Iran
00:07:27.640wants a nuclear weapon. I think that's ridiculous. Iran has been pretty open about wanting a nuclear
00:07:31.040program for 50 years, a nuclear bomb. But the United States' interest here is in preventing0.82
00:07:38.720Iran from becoming a regional hegemon, from attacking Israel, which is an ally of the United0.91
00:07:43.460States, from destabilizing the world further because they have one foot in, one foot out of0.95
00:07:47.320the international order. It's a broader kind of threat. For the state of Israel, though,
00:07:52.280Iran is an existential threat. Iran is much more of a threat to the state of Israel than it is to0.93
00:07:56.600the United States. Certainly, much more of a threat imminently. And previously, the state0.99
00:08:02.660of Israel could have counted on bipartisan support and then, at the very least, overwhelming GOP
00:08:08.780support. Now, the last backers of Israel in the United States are gone and the trend lines are
00:08:16.320all in the wrong direction. So if I'm a rational actor as the prime minister of Israel, I need to
00:08:23.000go all in on this Iran war. The problem is the United States doesn't necessarily want to go
00:08:28.220all in on this Iran war. But for the state of Israel, it's kind of like the last chance.
00:08:34.900And now we're in the middle of the sixth week. Don't forget President Trump
00:08:37.960said that the operation would take four to six weeks. And so when everyone was freaking out and
00:08:43.700losing their heads over Trump. I said, look, I would have argued against the war. I did argue
00:08:47.440against the war on prudential grounds, but Trump has an excellent record on foreign policy. So
00:08:51.700I'll get concerned in week six. That's when I'm going to start getting concerned.
00:08:55.880I think many people, many normal people, maybe not in the media or the political class,
00:08:59.760many normal people had that same opinion. But now we're in week six. President Trump clearly
00:09:05.480wants an off-ramp here. Israel cannot take an off-ramp here. Even if the numbers for favorability
00:09:11.600were really good in the United States, Israel probably wouldn't want to take the offering,
00:09:15.540but now it's existential. So now you have this even thornier problem.
00:09:21.860Where does this war go? President Trump just provided an update. So the chief problem,
00:09:27.560the greatest leverage that Iran has right now is that they blocked the Strait of Hormuz. And there
00:09:31.300are some people who are trying to say, well, actually, this is 15 degree chess because actually
00:09:35.620what's going to happen now is the United States is just going to supply all the oil to the world.
00:09:39.260But that isn't going to happen. We don't have sufficient capacity to make up for the oil that's being lost, not going through the Strait of Hormuz. And oil is a global commodity, so the oil prices are being set globally. That means gas prices are going to go up in the United States, even if we start exporting a ton of oil.
00:09:56.400So we have to open the Strait of Hormuz, but we can't do so in a way that allows Iran to hold0.88
00:10:03.420this massive leverage whereby they can just close the strait whenever they want to.0.96
00:10:07.340If that is the case, we will have given them a more powerful political weapon
00:10:10.860than a nuclear bomb. Because the thing about a nuclear bomb is you can't really use it.
00:10:15.040You know, I mean, we've used the nuclear bomb when we invented it 80 years ago. But since then,
00:10:21.000happily, no one has used a nuclear weapon. So weirdly, the ability to close the Strait of
00:10:26.780Hormuz and to paralyze the global hegemon is a stronger weapon, even than a nuclear bomb.
00:10:34.120So President Trump has done something that I think is very wise here. He says, okay, well,
00:10:38.040I can't really get these guys to negotiate. They're not honest negotiators. I can't get
00:10:42.100them to give up their nuclear program. Okay, I'll tell you what I'll do. You're going to choke off
00:10:46.040the global oil supply and petrochemicals and fertilizer and all these other goods that pass
00:10:51.260through the Strait of Hormuz? You're going to try to squeeze the Gulf states? You're going to do0.94
00:10:54.400that, Iran? Okay. Well, I see your blockade and I raise you a blockade. So now I'm going to blockade1.00
00:11:00.120your blockade. So that's fine. All right. I guess the oil is not going through the strait, but guess
00:11:03.580what? Nothing's getting into a rat of Iran now either. What are you going to do about that?1.00
00:11:08.860Iran is threatening to keep firing on the United States. Iran is now threatening to block shipping
00:11:15.000from the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, the Red Sea, if the U.S. continues the double blockade,
00:11:21.480such that now you have the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman,
00:11:26.480who was, according to reports, advocating for the strikes on Iran. Now, according to the reports,
00:11:32.140Mohammed bin Salman says, hey, we need the off-ramp in this war here because we cannot allow
00:11:36.620Iran to block the Red Sea. Meanwhile, China is threatening to arm the Iranians. That would be
00:11:43.780very bad for the United States. I think President Trump has headed that off. President Trump has
00:11:47.940now said to Xi Jinping, he wrote him a letter, he said, don't you arm the Iranians because then0.72
00:11:52.000we're going to take action against you. And Xi Jinping for now said, I don't intend to arm the0.77
00:11:55.120Iranians. It's a terrible position. And so it was always a terrible position. Trump was always in an
00:12:02.300impossible spot. That was true last year, right before the Fordo bombings. That was true six years
00:12:07.860ago, seven years ago. This has been building for many decades. But right now, I see only two
00:12:12.580options on Iran, both of them terrible. And we'll get to what those are in a second. First, though,
00:12:17.240I want to tell you about Policy Genius. Go to policygenius.com slash Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S.
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00:13:37.240coverage. Go to policygenius.com slash Knowles, compare life insurance quotes from top companies,
00:13:41.740see how much you can save, policygenius.com slash Knowles. I see two options on Iran right now.
00:13:48.280The one is to hand over massive leverage. If we wind this thing down with a bad deal and say,
00:13:56.000okay, Iran, you'll give us some guarantees that you won't pursue your nuclear weapon for another0.93
00:14:01.080five years or 10 years, but you'll get to keep your enriched uranium, which we've buried0.88
00:14:05.620underground because of the very effective American military action. But we're going to lift some
00:14:09.480sanctions. Maybe we'll give you a little bit of money. And we're going to recognize that you can
00:14:14.340play this card again whenever you want. You can block the Strait of Hormuz whenever you want.
00:14:17.380That's one option. Not great. Or we invade Iran. Or there's a ground invasion. There are boots on
00:14:25.400the ground. Something that would take power away from Iran. We would be saying, this Strait is1.00
00:14:32.060ours now. You're not going to shut us down. We're the global hegemon. Get back in line.
00:14:37.060But it's something for which there is no appetite in the United States.
00:14:42.120Not on the left, not on the right, not among the MAGA voters, not the Americans generally
00:14:47.380who are traumatized by the experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nobody really wants that.
00:14:53.620But what are you going to do? So then it's very tempting to say, well, Trump just put himself in
00:14:58.480pickle. He shouldn't have done this. He played this wrong. But this problem didn't begin six
00:15:02.540weeks ago. This problem was clear eight months ago. I did a very scientific Twitter poll eight
00:15:08.280months ago before the Fordow bombings. And I said, do you think that the United States should permit
00:15:14.380Iran to develop a nuclear weapon? And in my very highly scientific Twitter poll, it was 90-10. No.
00:15:21.140Right afterward, I said, okay, do you think the United States should go to war with Iran?
00:15:25.600precisely the same numbers, 90-10, no. So if you're the president, you're in an impossible
00:15:33.460situation. And this is how it works at presidential politics. I spoke to, many years ago, I spoke to
00:15:39.500a top advisor to President Bush, and he made the point that by the time a decision gets up to the
00:15:46.400presidential level, by the time it's not being taken by the underlings, it's impossible, just
00:15:51.260by definition. When it gets up to the level of the president, there are no good options.
00:15:55.560There are a ton of risks. This is what I said at the top of the Iran strikes, the most recent Iran
00:16:00.740strikes. Everybody was celebrating in certain quarters. Everybody was saying, this is great.0.94
00:16:06.580Finally, freedom for Iran. The wonderful Persians can now be Western liberal Democrats. And isn't
00:16:11.400that going to be wonderful? We're going to bring in the crown prince Reza Pahlavi. They're going
00:16:14.680to be pro-Western. It's going to be awesome. I said, ah, not so fast. I think this regime is a
00:16:19.860little more durable than all that. Let's not forget, the last time the CIA helped to install
00:16:23.240a regime in Iran, it lasted 26 years. The Islamic revolution, the mullahs, have lasted twice as long.
00:16:28.340They're clearly durable. The Iranians are not all, as we see in lots of propaganda on social media,0.97
00:16:33.700they're not all just like hot Persian women smoking long cigarettes, okay, ripping off their0.99
00:16:38.020hijabs. There is substantial support for a radical Islamic regime. It might not be the majority of0.91
00:16:42.820Iranians, but it's real. And the Iranian regime is brutal, ruthless. They have a billion contingency0.61
00:16:49.340plans. I don't think that you can really oust them. You can keep killing a lot of them, but I
00:16:56.240don't think you can oust the regime. So you had the people that were cheering it on the one hand,
00:16:59.900saying this is awesome, no downside. I interviewed someone with Cabot on Wired and Live the day the
00:17:06.240Iran strike began. It was some woman, I think she'd worked in the State Department. She was Persian by
00:17:10.420ethnicity. And she said, this is great. I don't see any downsides. I said, you don't see any
00:17:14.180potential. Hold on. I think I could name one or two. So that was one side of it. And then you had
00:17:18.800the other side saying this is terrible and Iran's a fine regime and they don't want a nuclear weapon
00:17:23.780and they're not at all a threat to the United States. I said, that's ridiculous too. The real
00:17:27.980take on this is if it works, this is the greatest stroke of foreign policy genius since the fall of
00:17:35.760the Berlin Wall. If it doesn't work, this could be a brutal blow to American power. Forget about
00:17:44.240the administration, forget about the conservative coalition. It would just be a major blow to
00:17:48.920American power on the world stage. So the stakes are very high. You got to give credit. The guy's
00:17:53.080got guts like we've rarely seen in the United States. But it's a brutal, brutal situation.
00:18:01.380I'm reminded of Thucydides. I go back to Thucydides. One of the three references that
00:18:06.940anyone ever makes when it comes to war. World War II, the fall of Rome, and Thucydides. Thucydides
00:18:13.300is writing in the history of the Peloponnesian War that there are three reasons that people go
00:18:19.900to war. Fear, interest, and honor. And no one ever takes honor seriously. But fear, obviously,
00:18:26.220we fear. We don't want Iran to get a nuclear weapon. Interest, it would be good to have this
00:18:29.760crucial country in the world be more pro-Western as it was 50 years ago. And honor, too. Honor,
00:18:35.520meaning that we're the global hegemon. We cannot be pushed around by this two-bit terrorist regime
00:18:40.800in Iran and all of its backers in Russia, in China. And this leads to what is sometimes called0.94
00:18:45.680the Thucydides trap, which is that when a major power like Athenian imperial democracy or the
00:18:51.600United States is challenged by a rising power, in this case, China, war becomes very likely.
00:19:01.700Those dynamics were all in play eight months ago, two years ago, 10 years ago.0.78
00:19:07.260They're very clear right now. Very dangerous situation. I don't envy the president.
00:19:12.460He had no good options. He today has no good options. I hope he can pull a rabbit out of a
00:19:18.580hat. One thing I always tell my friends in politics or in investing or anywhere is
00:19:22.180don't bet against Trump. The guy has managed to pull a lot of rabbits out of the hat. However,
00:19:28.140this is a very difficult one. If he can pull a rabbit out of the hat on this,
00:19:32.260abolish term limits, leave him in power until he's 150 years old. Brutal situation. Coupled with
00:19:40.600the major shift in domestic political opinion, especially on the Middle East, especially on
00:19:45.280Israel, it's just a perfect storm. Okay, speaking of the president and religion, it always comes
00:19:51.920back to religion. It's not just because I care a lot about religion, you care a lot about religion,
00:19:55.700It just politics is about religion. Ultimately, the president has another message for the Pope
00:20:02.140president posted on truth social. I said, oh no, oh no. I'm white knuckling here. What did he say
00:20:09.040to the Pope this time? And he said, will someone please tell Pope Leo that Iran has killed at
00:20:14.780least 42,000 innocent, completely unarmed protesters in the last two months. And that
00:20:18.940for Iran to have a nuclear bomb is absolutely unacceptable. Can I say something? Can I say
00:20:25.220Look, I was very blunt about how I did not like the president's last tweet about the Pope where
00:20:32.360he called him weak and terrible. He said he doesn't like him and all. And I said, I don't
00:20:35.760like, it's not that you can't criticize the Pope, but I don't love the tone about this. I gave a
00:20:40.160whole speech last night, which you can catch on. I think it's on my YouTube channel. It's certainly
00:20:43.060on Yaf's YouTube channel at Villanova, the Pope's alma mater on this dynamic, the Pope versus the
00:20:48.780president. I said, a lot of it is, is the tone. You can disagree, but there should be a more
00:20:54.620respectful tone. Not just to be nice, not just to be polite, but because the temporal power
00:20:59.960has to work with the spiritual power. This is a dynamic that's existed since the 5th century,
00:21:05.380or earlier, the 4th century, actually. They have to work together. You don't want them at war. In
00:21:09.360the Middle Ages, they would literally go to war sometimes. It was not good. And there are so many
00:21:13.440dark forces arrayed against us. We cannot have Catholics fighting Protestants, Christians0.90
00:21:19.040fighting Jews in the United States, and you cannot have the temporal ruler of the global hegemon.
00:21:24.620the United States, the president of the United States, being more powerful than any Roman0.67
00:21:28.320emperor ever fighting the spiritual authority. Don't want to have it. So can I say something?
00:21:36.160This post from President Trump to the Pope, I think he heard us. I think this is actually
00:21:42.940a major improvement. It's Trumpy, so it's not the most polite ever, but look what he's saying.
00:21:48.500He's not saying, this guy's a big dummy and he's a hippie and he's a commie and he wears a hat
00:21:52.720and I don't like him. He's not saying that.
00:21:54.620He says, will someone please tell the Pope? He even uses the word please. That's nice.
00:21:59.500Will someone please tell the Pope that Iran has done a lot of bad things?
00:22:04.200The Pope was saying that he's skeptical that the war in Iran is justified. There are just wars,0.98
00:22:09.600but he's saying, I don't think this war is justified. And Trump is saying, no,
00:22:13.360will someone please tell the Pope? Here is the evidence for why the war might be justified.0.99
00:22:18.180So he's actually working within the same framework as the Pope in this one.
00:22:21.880it's not just accusations. It's not just insults. He's attempting to persuade in his idiosyncratic
00:22:29.040way. He is aligning his interest with the Pope's interest. They're aiming toward a common good.
00:22:34.860Hey, Pope, you want to protect innocence. Well, I just think you're wrong about how I am protecting
00:22:40.020innocence because I really am protecting innocence. And you're going to light on the
00:22:43.320Iranian regime. And actually, I'm justified in taking action against the Iranian regime1.00
00:22:49.220on the same moral bases that you're thinking about. You even get a please in there. I'll take
00:22:55.720it, guys. I know, you know, people say, well, no, I want him to say it this way. I want him to use
00:22:59.180this word. I don't like that. That's not good enough. It's not, just deleting a post isn't
00:23:02.860enough. You know, there's a million things to complain about. But in my view of politics,
00:23:07.900politics is not the art of the perfect. Politics is the art of the possible. Politics is the art
00:23:12.300of the second best. And so I'm very happy. I'm very gratified to see. President Trump posted
00:23:17.940that picture that offended a lot of people a few days ago. And then he took it down.
00:23:23.860That's a win. A lot of the other stuff about that, some of the explanations, justifications,
00:23:29.080to me, a lot of that is just noise. We asked him to take the picture down and he did. That's a good
00:23:35.880thing. We should be happy about that. In this case, Catholics in particular said we would like
00:23:43.440it if the president spoke in a more respectful tone about the pope. He did that. I'm not saying
00:23:49.640this is the way you would speak to someone at a high table at an Oxford dinner. I'm not saying
00:23:53.280this is language totally fit for the queen, but it is more respectful. He is actually moving in
00:23:58.620that direction. I'll take it. I think one step in the right direction, two steps or three steps in
00:24:02.580the right direction. I'll take it. Now, speaking of terrible regimes, Hassan Piker, a left-wing
00:24:11.080streamer who has repeatedly, consistently called for violence against conservatives,
00:24:15.800threatened conservatives. He spoke at my alma mater, Yale, last night, and he claimed that
00:24:23.400the fall of the Soviet Union is one of the great catastrophes of the 20th century. Normal Americans,
00:24:29.680patriotic Americans, Americans, consider the fall of the Soviet Union to be one of the great
00:24:36.460victories of the 20th century, one of the great victories in the history of the United States,
00:24:39.540the end of the evil empire. The rise of America as the undisputed leader of the world.
00:24:45.800For Hassan Piker, it's one of the great tragedies. And Hassan Piker is not just some guy mouthing
00:24:51.720off on a live stream. Hassan Piker is the most prominent left-wing live streamer who is now
00:24:57.480campaigning with Democrat candidates in the fall. We'll get to what that means. First, though,
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00:26:18.720Hassan Piker at dear old Yale. You know, Yale was liberal when I was there,