00:01:13.860Then Trump said that, yeah, the Strait is going to be open, but the blockade on Iran
00:01:18.660is going to continue until there is an agreement.
00:01:21.940And so the Iranians rather predictably responded to that by re-blocking the strait and opening fire at a bunch of the ships that were passing through.
00:01:35.760I think it was two Indian ships and a third maybe cargo ship, two Indian tackers and a third cargo ship, I think.
00:01:43.520Because when the announcement that the strait was opened happened, a lot of the ships that were trapped in the Strait of Hormuz immediately decided to make a run for it and try to cross before it would be closed again.
00:01:59.180But in reality, it just never happened. There was no opening of the strait. There was nothing of the sort.
00:02:04.100and then a two days later the United States blows up a hole in the engine room of an Iranian tanker
00:02:15.920that was trying to run the American blockade the counter blockade on Iran's blockade essentially
00:02:22.020they managed to disable the ship by attacking the the engines of it and that's an easy thing to do
00:02:30.300if you're a sophisticated military like the U.S. Navy. And now we are kind of back where we started.
00:02:37.120And the idea from both sides seems to be to maximize the leverage that they have
00:02:43.220before any negotiations happen. And this from Amit Segal, an Israeli journalist,
00:02:52.440he's saying that the current discussions for negotiations are that the enrichment of
00:03:00.280uranium would be suspended in Iran for 15 years. The Iranians wanted less, the United States wanted
00:03:08.92020, so 15 was the compromise. But the enriched uranium wouldn't leave Iran. Instead, it would be
00:03:18.760fully inspected and be under constant United Nations surveillance through the International
00:03:26.200atomic energy agency, which we know is riddled with Western spies who feed information to the
00:03:33.820West because that's the purpose of pretty much all UN agencies. And indeed, it's not just the
00:03:39.320West that has its spies there. If the Chinese have people there, they're probably Chinese spies. If
00:03:43.720the Russians have people there, they're probably Russian spies, etc., etc. But then what would also
00:03:51.660happen is that some of Iran's funds would be released and sanctions on Iran would be lifted
00:03:58.440gradually. Now for the Israelis the lifting of sanctions is a bit of a disaster because it
00:04:04.980brings the regime back to life really and it means that they can spin a narrative of victory
00:04:10.860and in any kind of narrative of victory it is the hardliners who win because they chose the
00:04:18.420difficult path and they chose to fight. And that means that they end up with the upper hand. And
00:04:23.700that means that the Iranians double down on the missile program. And one of the red lines that
00:04:29.140has been announced by the Israelis is that they don't want the Iranians to accumulate more than
00:04:35.920a few thousand missiles, which they already have probably more than that, because more than a few
00:04:41.880thousand missiles becomes impossible to intercept and then the iranians can take out israeli
00:04:48.780infrastructure and if we as we've discussed a bunch of times on the show when you're dealing
00:04:54.720with a country the size of israel you are dealing with a tiny territory with no strategic depth
00:05:01.380there is a bunch of industries that are concentrated around here in the south between
00:05:06.340Dimona and Arad. There is an energy port here in Ashdod and in Ashkelon, and another one in Haifa.
00:05:16.200And then there is a massive urban area extending all along the coast, the Tel Aviv-Yafa region.
00:05:23.520And if you target those repeatedly, you just paralyze life in Israel. So the problem that
00:05:28.800the Israelis are trying to solve is their lack of strategic depth. They want to do that by
00:05:34.800expanding, but even if they, you know, do what they've already done, which is take bits of
00:05:40.180Lebanon and Syria, and maybe try to take bits of Jordan, it doesn't solve the problem that this is
00:05:47.860a tiny space with very concentrated infrastructure and industry, and that it would be enormously
00:05:55.300vulnerable to missiles. Which is why what Amit Segal is saying is that the preferred outcome
00:06:02.680for the Israelis is this kind of no war no peace which is what had happened in Iraq between 1990
00:06:12.220and 2003. If you will remember the Iraq war the first one Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 and this
00:06:21.540meant that its oil resources were essentially more or less doubled because Kuwait is so rich in oil
00:06:31.840and that meant that Iraq could secure the Basra vulnerability that it had
00:06:39.120because it can only trade through a single port here in Basra and Shatt al-Arab.
00:06:46.020And with that additional space and these additional resources,
00:06:49.720Iraq would become a much more powerful country.
00:06:52.840And so the United States defeated it in 1990 and kept it in a state of no war, no peace for 13 years.
00:07:01.840with massive sanctions on the country that, you know, led to the death of, among others,
00:07:07.520half a million children, but which meant that the Iraqis were permanently paralyzed
00:07:11.860and that they couldn't rebuild their military and slowly the Iraqi state was sufficiently weakened
00:07:18.740so that the 2003 invasion could happen. And so what the Israelis are envisioning as a way
00:07:26.820out of this war in Iran is to really not reach any deal
00:07:51.180and they would still be subject to an American naval blockade.
00:07:54.920And so what the Israelis are after are this becoming a permanent state of affairs, where the whole world's economy is held hostage by this conflict, by Iran, which is the party that's conducting attacks against energy, and by the Gulf states, which are the party that are permitting these attacks on Iranian infrastructure and energy by giving the United States military access.
00:08:22.540And so you end up in, essentially, an energy starvation scenario.
00:08:30.120Now, before we get into that, what's Trump doing and what's his view on all of this?
00:09:16.260and that this should be very quick because most of the points are already negotiated.
00:09:23.720Somewhat confusing. The next day he says that if the ceasefire, if there isn't an agreement by
00:09:31.640Wednesday, in two days from this broadcast, the bombs will start dropping again. And then he says
00:09:39.600that the Iranians are attacking ships, which they were, and that wasn't nice. We are still going to
00:09:47.200negotiate, but actually Iran is helping us by maintaining the blockade, which doesn't make a
00:09:56.580lot of sense, really. His argument is that the world is buying a lot more energy from the United
00:10:02.920States, which is true. We're going to discuss that in a little bit. And then he threatens again
00:10:10.300that he's going to knock out every single power plant at every single bridge in Iran.
00:10:15.240No more Mr. Nice Guy. They will come down fast. They will come down easy. And if they don't take
00:10:21.440the deal, it'll be my honor to do what needs to be done. And then to top it all off, to Trump
00:10:32.360issues a video essentially calling for regime change again. Now this is the familiar pattern
00:10:41.060of Trump saying that a deal has happened and maybe it has and maybe it hasn't and then putting more
00:10:47.560pressure on the adversary and trying to get concessions that way in order to reach an
00:10:53.080agreement. But the issue is that this always comes at a cost because given the fact that the Iranians
00:11:01.500have been attacked twice during negotiations already when trump makes these kinds of statements
00:11:08.220what the iranians conclude is that he's setting a trap again and that trump doesn't actually want
00:11:16.880to negotiate he wants to return to the war and if you're iran and this is your perspective
00:11:23.460well it's kind of understandable why you'd have this perspective because you were attacked twice
00:11:28.340during negotiations. And so maybe the other objective is, really, as Mr. Rothman here
00:11:37.840says, that there are divisions within Iran between the different parties and the idea
00:11:45.760is to, and, you know, this is a sign that the regime is fractured and desperate.
00:11:53.260And I want to talk a little bit about the divisions within Iran, right? Because obviously
00:11:58.320there are different power centers within the Iranian establishment, just like there are
00:12:03.600different power centers within the American establishment or the Israeli establishment
00:12:07.940or the British establishment. This is kind of normal. But this division within Iran between
00:12:15.580the people who prefer negotiations, the diplomatic side, so people like the Speaker of Parliament,
00:12:21.160Galibaf, or the Foreign Secretary Araqji, or any of the others, versus the IRGC, now represented
00:12:30.100by Vahidi. These have always been the norm in Iran back from the days of the Safavid Empire.
00:12:39.420So the Safavid Empire was established in the 1600s, 1700s, and really was the prototype of
00:12:47.300the modern Iranian state, and it spanned a territory extending from Afghanistan to Iraq,
00:12:54.660essentially, with bits of Central Asia, Iran itself, bits of Armenia and Azerbaijan,
00:13:00.900that territory. And it was constantly in combat with the Ottomans, and it regularly allied
00:13:08.760with the West against the Ottomans. And this goes to a point that I keep on making,
00:13:14.780which is that Iran is a natural ally of the West, were it not for the Israel issue.
00:13:21.260Because Iran is surrounded by major Sunni powers, and as a minority Shia state,
00:13:27.300it needs external support, and it has tended historically to look to the West for that
00:13:33.560external support, including the Portuguese, the British, and others, and then the Americans,
00:13:44.780itself and fortify itself against attacks by its neighbors. Now in the days of the Safavids there
00:13:51.860was always a division between what were termed the men of the sword and the men of the pen
00:13:57.440which is essentially today the same division that you have between the diplomats and the IRGC
00:14:05.300and if you look at Iranian diplomats and senior government officials these are incredibly well
00:14:12.040educated, impressive men. They're quite capable when it comes to their roles. And if you look at
00:14:20.040the IRGC guys, these all are graduates of the Iran-Iraq war. They're all veterans of the Iran-Iraq
00:14:28.200war, where the Iranians did things like send massive human waves to attack Iraqi minefields
00:14:36.820and machine gun positions and just died in huge numbers so the people who rose to the top within
00:14:44.900the irgc were the people who were sufficiently clever and fanatical to survive this to first
00:14:54.260fight this war and second to survive this war and these people naturally have different outlooks
00:15:01.220And the way that it worked under Khamenei, the father, not Khamenei, the son, Mujtaba, was that Khamenei would always actually exploit this division.
00:15:14.400He would use the hardliners to make sure that the diplomats could get the best deal possible.
00:15:22.680And he would use the diplomats to soften the effect of the actions of the hardliners.
00:15:28.780So these two wings of the regime are typically in balance when there is strong leadership.
00:15:39.120And under Mushtaba, if he is alive, which is a big if, he has the authority to provide that
00:15:47.160strong leadership and play the same game. So yes, you are seeing divisions within Iran.
00:15:56.100They are obvious, between the hardliners and the diplomats, between the men of the sword,
00:16:01.740or the men of the missile, or the men of the drone, perhaps most accurately,
00:16:05.520and the men of the sword, the men of the pen, I mean. But this division is normal for Iran.
00:16:12.800And this division is part of how the Iranian regime naturally functions. And it is reflected
00:16:19.760everywhere. If you go and look at, say, World War I history, and what was going on in the
00:16:27.180chancelleries of Europe, well, it was always the same thing. The Austrian defense minister always
00:16:33.420advocated for war, and the Austrian war minister, obviously, at the time, because we weren't, you
00:16:39.940know, the West wasn't cucked then. And the Austrian foreign minister always advocated for diplomacy
00:16:46.840CMPs. And they worked together, and they had their conflicts, and they were vying for the
00:16:53.800attention of the emperor. So this is normal, but it is really a problem if there isn't an emperor.
00:17:01.800And in Edan's case, the emperor is the supreme leader. And until we know anything with confidence
00:17:09.880about the condition of Khamenei, we can't really make very strong judgments on whether or not this
00:17:17.900is the regime that is fractured and desperate. Because in fact, historically speaking, this is
00:17:24.920the way that Iran is meant to work. This has always been the way that Iran works, with this
00:17:33.360division always present. So I just wanted to mention that by way of caution. What is actually
00:17:43.180unusual is to have the situation which the United States is in, where even the Secretary of State
00:17:51.420is a neocon and is part of a faction that always advocates war. That's unusual. That's the less
00:18:02.200typical thing, historically speaking. But in fact, the division that you see in Iran,
00:18:08.780that's actually what normal is like. You see it in Russia. Lavrov always advocating for
00:18:15.780diplomacy, always trying to find a new agreement, trying to find a new deal. And the guys in defense
00:18:21.980saying, you know, there's going to be fire and brimstone. And Putin sitting at the top,
00:18:27.960navigating the two factions, you see it in China. So what's abnormal is to have consensus over war.
00:18:40.220That said, the Iranians have taken a massive beating, and anybody who tells you otherwise
00:18:46.280isn't telling you the truth. And the concern for the men of the pen in Iran's case is that
00:18:53.560they don't know how the economy will recover if the war ends with the economy destroyed and them
00:19:00.120being placed permanently under sanctions in the way that they are now. Because they can't be
00:19:07.860assured that the Chinese or the Russians won't bargain the Iran card away in the same way that
00:19:15.740the Russians bargained away the Syria card. So the concerns of the diplomats in Iran and them
00:19:24.000wanting some kind of agreement, these are valid concerns. And the problem is that the concerns
00:19:30.940of the men of the drone, as I will be calling them, the IRGC, are also valid. Because if they
00:19:38.720don't prove themselves on the battlefield, and if they don't somehow make the cost of the war
00:19:45.420so exorbitant that it cannot happen again, then actually they will end up like Iraq
00:19:52.620in the 1990s, and they will be getting pounded every few years in the same way that Iraq was
00:20:00.200pounded every few years. And that's the dilemma that they're facing. That's the problem that they
00:20:06.540have. They cannot defeat the United States militarily because they cannot hit the American
00:20:12.900mainland they could cause massive damage to american military bases which they have done
00:20:18.100and these bases were built up over decades and the equipment that is there takes years to replace
00:20:26.280especially some of the radar equipment um the awaxes that were hit that's a big deal
00:20:32.060but this is not enough to actually defeat the united states the most that they can achieve
00:24:28.800but I think that the Americans want to go back to war.
00:24:31.240Because if the war ends now, the Iranians are the regional hegemon.
00:24:39.000And they can say to the Gulf states that, look, the presence of the United States is useless.
00:24:44.140It got so bad that the presidential advisor to the president of the UAE issued a statement saying that we're considering closing American bases and getting paid a new one if we don't get...
00:24:57.580the central bank separately said, that they would consider getting paid a new one for their oil
00:25:03.120shipments if they don't get a fresh dollar injection. But it seems to me that's the UAE
00:25:09.580making threats that it doesn't mean to try to drag the Americans into the war
00:25:12.980by showing the Americans the consequences of the war ending now.
00:25:20.620because if the war does end now then the u.s presence in the middle east is kind of pointless
00:25:27.760the iranians can shut down energy production and energy exports when they want
00:25:33.460and they will still build up their missile program they would have lost a lot on the
00:25:40.380nuclear side stuff that they were willing to give up in the oman talks by the way so not not new
00:25:47.100stuff. But it would mean that the Iranians are the regional hegemon. And that's not a state of
00:25:55.780affairs that the United States is willing to accept right now. So I think that Trump is doing
00:26:01.180all of this to make sure that there is a return to war, but that he is able to blame the Iranians
00:26:06.940for it in order to justify it to his base. And I think he's saying things like, I forbid the
00:26:15.240Israelis from doing this and that, because he is very well aware of how divided his