The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - June 30, 2026


PREVIEW LIVE： Realpolitik #53 ｜ Iran Wins Hormuz


Episode Stats


Length

26 minutes

Words per minute

143.44

Word count

3,800

Sentence count

221

Harmful content

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

86

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Strait of Hormuz has been the scene of conflict between the U.S. and Iran over the past few days. Iran has been trying to prevent ships from passing through the strait, and the United States is trying to block them in order to prevent them from getting through. And the Iranians have been retaliating.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to another episode of realpolitik i believe it's number 53 today
00:00:06.320 and we're going to be talking about the middle east unfortunately i want to do an episode on
00:00:11.520 latin america and what's going on there because there is a lot of interesting stuff happening
00:00:16.320 but over the weekend we saw the fireworks we saw the israelis and the lebanese signing an agreement
00:00:22.880 And we have to talk a little bit about that because a bunch of interesting things are slowly being confirmed.
00:00:31.980 Now, just to go over quickly what happened over the weekend.
00:00:36.100 uh first we saw some revelations from u.s media the wall street journal explaining that there
00:00:45.440 that the extent of damage that happened to uh israel and u.s bases um was substantial 400
00:00:54.200 million dollars in american terms 400 million dollars is really chump change but the key point
00:01:01.360 that's being raised is that it's making it questionable whether or not keeping those bases
00:01:07.100 in the region is worthwhile. And what's changing here is that the perception of Gulf states about
00:01:14.460 the ability of the United States to protect them is changing, which is really a success for the
00:01:22.160 Iranians. They showed the Gulf states that when they want to hammer them, they can do it. And 1.00
00:01:28.360 when they want to cause damage to them, they can do it. And of course, the damage to assets in the
00:01:35.680 Gulf states, energy assets and so on, some reporting says that this is considerably higher.
00:01:42.800 And it says that the Iranians might have taken 15, 20 billion dollars in damage, whereas the
00:01:49.340 Gulf states would have taken 60 billion dollars in damage. And that is a problem for them. This 0.63
00:01:56.100 isn't something that they can tolerate happening to them repeatedly, meaning that they need to 0.95
00:02:02.920 figure out a way to appease the Iranians. And that means more or less accepting the Iranian idea 0.84
00:02:10.800 that it's the Iranians who decide which ships manage to go through the Strait of Hormuz
00:02:17.180 and which ships do not. And we saw the Americans trying to contest that over the weekend,
00:02:22.800 because this is really what it was all about. Over the weekend, what happened was that the
00:02:30.460 United States was trying to get the ships in Hormuz to go through the corridor adjacent to Oman.
00:02:41.300 They're basically hugging the coast of Oman and the UAE and then exiting into the Indian Ocean
00:02:49.020 by that route. And the Iranians decided that they were going to hit one of the ships that was doing
00:02:56.800 that. I think they disabled its engine room. The Americans said that the Iranians fired four
00:03:02.700 drones and that they intercepted three, but one of them hit the ship. So they couldn't actually
00:03:07.300 defend the ship. And the U.S. retaliated. And then the next day, the Iranians attacked American bases
00:03:15.020 and then they attacked another ship. 0.92
00:03:19.120 The logic behind it, essentially,
00:03:22.320 is that the Iranians are saying
00:03:24.120 that if you go through Hormuz without approval,
00:03:27.880 we're just going to attack your ship. 0.99
00:03:30.500 We're just going to blow it up. 0.68
00:03:32.500 And for the insurance market and for the shippers,
00:03:36.080 this is a major problem 0.95
00:03:37.080 because most of them would rather
00:03:39.480 not have to go through this headache
00:03:41.320 and they don't want to take that kind of risk because ship captains want to make it alive and
00:03:50.000 so do their crews. And if they can hit the engine room of a ship, they can hit the bridge and they
00:03:55.520 can kill everybody on the ship if they chose to do so. So the Americans and the Iranians exchanged 1.00
00:04:02.960 missiles and the U.S. bombed various sites in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz in order to make
00:04:10.400 their point. But at the end of the day, what the Iranians have proved is that the Americans don't 0.92
00:04:18.320 want to escalate into a full-scale war over this, and that if ships go through the Strait of Hormuz
00:04:25.400 without the approval of the Iranians, then it won't work for them. And if you can hit one ship 0.68
00:04:33.440 a day, you can pretty much choke the traffic completely. And if you look at the geography,
00:04:40.400 The Iranians are hitting ships in this immediate area of the strait.
00:04:46.300 But you have to remember, again, the nature of the terrain.
00:04:50.760 You have to remember the geography of the place.
00:04:53.500 All over the coast of Iran, you have these mountains and hills
00:04:58.780 that are full of caves and warehouses and things like that, 0.95
00:05:04.220 where the Iranians can just hide a few drones, 0.93
00:05:07.260 and they can attack ships pretty much anywhere in that area. 0.89
00:05:12.180 So if a ship is coming out of Kuwait or Basra
00:05:14.940 and wants to go through Hormuz, 0.98
00:05:18.560 the Iranians will know about it. 0.71
00:05:22.180 If it doesn't pay the toll, 1.00
00:05:23.740 they can attack them here in Hormuz as they've been doing,
00:05:26.440 but in this area, they're not safe either.
00:05:29.800 And so the two sides seem to be focusing the battle
00:05:32.560 in the very narrow area of the strait,
00:05:35.220 But the Iranians don't actually have to stick to that. They could expand the war significantly, attack ships at port, attack ships way deeper in the Persian Gulf, and simply shut down shipping completely. 0.84
00:05:51.400 So we are still in the signaling phase of this war.
00:05:55.200 And even though Trump keeps on making these blood-curdling threats
00:05:59.300 that he's going to destroy Iran and destroy the Islamic Republic,
00:06:03.560 the reality is that there isn't enough oil and storage for him to be able to do that.
00:06:10.240 And for the Iranians, they're taking advantage of the ceasefire in this negotiating period
00:06:14.860 to cement their position and to normalize the idea that if you go through Hormuz,
00:06:20.500 you have to get IRGC approval. And if you start getting used to that, then it just becomes the
00:06:29.340 new normal. And when the 60-day ceasefire expires, the Iranians will say, well, we only agreed 0.92
00:06:36.080 not to levy fees for the first 60 days of the ceasefire. If you want the ceasefire extended,
00:06:42.620 then all of the ships that go through are going to have to pay fees. And this spills over into
00:06:48.000 the sanctions conversation. Because if you're a shipper, you can't pay the Iranians if they're 1.00
00:06:55.020 under sanctions. And if the Americans try to enforce the sanctions, we go back to where we 0.93
00:07:01.780 are right now, at a time when the petroleum reserves globally would have declined further. 0.97
00:07:10.060 So over time, it suits the Iranians to maximize their leverage now and to force the issue now 0.87
00:07:17.980 rather than to wait for the ceasefire period to expire 0.70
00:07:21.980 and then try to say, well, you know, the new rules apply as of today. 0.94
00:07:27.820 So what the Iranians are doing, they're saying to shippers
00:07:30.480 that even as of today, if you want to go through Hormuz, 0.91
00:07:36.200 you have to give us notice.
00:07:37.680 If you don't give us notice, you might end up being attacked.
00:07:41.560 So that when the 60 days expire, you no longer have to just give notice.
00:07:47.080 you have to give notice and pay. And what we're seeing from how the Iranians are fighting this 0.95
00:07:54.060 war or how they fought this war, everybody talks about how the Iranians attacked the Gulf a lot
00:08:00.360 more than they attacked Israel. Fair enough. There's a military reason for that, which is that 1.00
00:08:05.720 the nearest bases to Iran are in the Gulf. But there's also a geographic reason and a strategic
00:08:12.760 reason, which is that what the Iranians are trying to do is to say to the world, we dominate
00:08:19.160 the entire Gulf, or at least we dominate all of the small states of the Gulf except for Saudi
00:08:25.800 Arabia. And we'll get back to Saudi Arabia and Yemen and what's going on there and how the
00:08:30.840 Saudis can essentially be brought into line, or so the Iranians would hope. So what the Iranians 0.99
00:08:37.180 are saying is that we're mainly a Gulf power. The power of Iran comes from its control over 0.96
00:08:45.760 the Persian Gulf and over the straits around the Persian Gulf, and that means that the Iranians 1.00
00:08:52.920 can influence the 20% of global oil exports that pass through Hormuz, and that makes them a major
00:09:00.780 player. So that between them and the Russians and the Saudis, they decide what happens in the oil
00:09:07.440 markets. And with the Saudis being at a bit of a disadvantage because they are surrounded
00:09:12.800 on one side by the Yemenis, on the other side by the Iranians. So that's the game that the 0.94
00:09:20.320 Iranians are playing. They're trying to say that they dominate the Gulf, that they are the ones 1.00
00:09:25.800 in charge of the Gulf. And given that the United States, every time this happens, shows that it
00:09:32.740 isn't willing to escalate, it's kind of working for the Iranians. It's kind of working. This is 0.99
00:09:41.460 basically going on their terms, more or less. And they're saying now that there's a ceasefire,
00:09:48.460 that there's going to be a hotline between Iran and the United States at a military-to-military
00:09:53.480 level so that they can de-conflict. But all that that means is that the Iranians will be giving 0.82
00:09:59.140 notice that they're going to be attacking ships. Because fundamentally, the issue is this. The 0.70
00:10:05.400 issue is that for the United States, if it is no longer the policeman of the seas, then it is no
00:10:12.320 longer the global superpower. That's the main problem. The U.S.'s power comes from its domination
00:10:19.200 over the sea lanes. And if a middling power like Iran gets to decide who passes through 0.99
00:10:26.740 international shipping ways, then Turkey can do that to the Bosphorus, Singapore and Malaysia 0.76
00:10:33.940 and Indonesia can do that in the Strait of Malacca, etc., etc., etc. So it's a game changer,
00:10:41.320 basically. And as I've said before, the power of the dollar rests on the perception that the
00:10:50.180 United States is the global hegemon. If it can't police the seas and its navy isn't capable of
00:10:55.920 stopping a state like Iran, it's a real problem. So it's genuinely surprising to me that the 0.99
00:11:02.560 Americans aren't escalating this. It's really a surprise because what they are giving up
00:11:08.700 is enormous.
00:11:11.720 It's really enormous.
00:11:13.160 They're giving up their claim
00:11:14.580 to be the world's policemen.
00:11:17.740 And that's been the status
00:11:20.460 since the end of the Second World War.
00:11:22.820 They're giving it up
00:11:24.040 without enough of a fight,
00:11:26.240 shall we say.
00:11:28.080 So let's see how this plays out.
00:11:31.000 But there's another angle to this,
00:11:33.120 which you're going to call me crazy
00:11:34.920 for saying this,
00:11:35.700 but we'll talk again in five years' time.
00:11:38.700 which is that five to ten years timeline,
00:11:43.420 the Iranians and the Israelis are natural allies.
00:11:46.820 And that's the angle that changes this dynamic.
00:11:50.260 But we'll talk about that maybe later.
00:11:53.780 So the Iranians are saying, or the Americans are saying,
00:11:57.260 that the Iranians have recovered their ability to defend the airspaces. 0.82
00:12:02.340 And it seems that the Iranians can enforce the closure of Hormuz whenever they want it.
00:12:08.700 And what's surprising is that as this ceasefire seemed to break down,
00:12:12.840 the U.S. didn't even threaten to reimpose the blockade on Iran
00:12:15.660 or to reimpose sanctions on Iran,
00:12:18.680 which are cards that are still available to the United States.
00:12:22.360 So the Americans are tolerating this,
00:12:25.320 either because they want to or because they can't do anything about it.
00:12:30.360 And so we're seeing that in this battle, 0.80
00:12:33.380 the Iranians are winning control of Hormuz.
00:12:36.700 and when ships go through without their permission, 0.85
00:12:42.220 they just smash them.
00:12:44.200 They just fire things at them.
00:12:46.020 And you get J.D. Vance saying,
00:12:47.800 oh, no, we don't, you know, 1.00
00:12:50.220 the Iranians should be talking 1.00
00:12:51.980 instead of just blowing things up. 1.00
00:12:55.060 Why?
00:12:57.420 Blowing things up forces the other guy to talk to you, right?
00:13:01.180 That's how these dynamics work.
00:13:03.200 um we'll see how this plays out the the americans haven't given up on this they're still trying to
00:13:12.040 escort ships but because trump needs a deal on the nuclear stuff because otherwise he has to go
00:13:18.960 back to the war if he doesn't get a deal on the nuclear stuff the iranians are betting that they
00:13:25.000 can get control of Hormuz out of this. And then they become the dominant player in the Gulf and
00:13:33.620 they become the dominant player in Iraq and they secure their position. And from the nationalist
00:13:41.940 Iranian perspective, geographically that makes a lot more sense than focusing on Lebanon, for example.
00:13:48.860 so let's see how this ends up going now the second angle to think about it was is what's happening in
00:14:00.180 iraq over the weekend suddenly the new prime minister of iraq decided to lock up 47 prominent
00:14:12.940 Iraqi politicians from across the political spectrum on charges of corruption.
00:14:22.940 Iraq, like the level of corruption in Iraq is legendary even by Middle Eastern standards. 0.78
00:14:30.300 So in the Middle East, everybody's corrupt. Corruption is perfectly normal. 1.00
00:14:34.220 You know, you have to pay bribes for pretty much everything.
00:14:37.260 fine, fine, but even then there are degrees. Even then there are levels. And Iraq is legendary for
00:14:47.860 its corruption by Middle Eastern standards. So for a new prime minister to come in, 1.00
00:14:53.180 kind of backed by the Iranians, and to decide to lock up a bunch of serious politicians on 0.94
00:15:00.500 corruption charges, is very unusual, extremely unusual. And it's also very unusual because at 0.57
00:15:08.820 the same time, the Iraqi government are saying that within three months, basically, they are
00:15:15.980 going to remove all of the weapons that are in the hands of the various militias.
00:15:22.620 Now, obviously, the most important militias are the ones that are controlled by Iran.
00:15:27.300 and so that seems like a very bold move for a new iraqi prime minister and it seems that the
00:15:39.380 nature of the fight is changing i've heard some people saying that the americans are trying to
00:15:44.620 iraq so that they can uh prepare a ground invasion into iran because really uh physically the only
00:15:54.560 place where you can build up forces for a ground invasion against Iran is Iraq. Afghanistan,
00:16:01.780 logistically impossible, given that it's landlocked. Iraq is the next alternative. 1.00
00:16:06.820 That seems stupid. Let me just off the bat say that that seems completely stupid. 1.00
00:16:12.280 Because in order to build up forces in Iraq, you need to get them there by sea, maybe, 0.99
00:16:18.760 through the Persian Gulf. Not going to happen. Or you need to get them there by land,
00:16:23.960 through Syria, at which point you become insanely vulnerable to the militias in Iraq backed by Iran
00:16:32.800 because there are only two roads going in, or three roads to be precise, going in from Syria
00:16:41.280 into Iraq, which is this one here via Rutba and the Bukmal Qaim one, and the one controlled by
00:16:49.560 the Kurds here up in the north at the border between Syria and Iraq. And if you try to send 0.86
00:16:56.580 convoys into Syrian ports, offload them, and then send them into Iraq, you're going to get smashed 0.88
00:17:04.220 along the way. It doesn't make a lot of sense at all to claim that. So I'm genuinely wondering 0.71
00:17:11.420 what's happening in Iraq. And if the idea is to use the new government to try to instigate turmoil
00:17:19.100 within Iraq as part of a bid to displace the Iranians by having another proxy war in Iraq. 0.78
00:17:27.500 Maybe. I don't know. I've only started seeing this reporting over the weekend, 0.69
00:17:33.460 and I haven't done enough of my homework around it. But in the past, we've seen these kinds of
00:17:41.160 plays that happen in order to instigate conflict, and it is a possibility. 0.58
00:17:47.200 But I'm genuinely surprised by it, because the new Iraqi prime minister, he used to run a bank that was used by the Iranians to evade sanctions.
00:17:59.600 And so him turning on the Iranians doesn't seem clear, doesn't seem very straightforward.
00:18:06.940 It doesn't, it isn't obvious what's happening.
00:18:10.460 It could be that he's turned and decided to back the United States and that he is doing the U.S.'s bidding in a similar way as the Lebanese government is doing the Americans' bidding to try to instigate a conflict with Hezbollah.
00:18:28.100 That's a possibility.
00:18:28.920 But in that case, we are looking at another civil war in Iraq, basically,
00:18:35.140 not just between different sects, but within the Shia sect. 0.84
00:18:42.280 And that is something that will end up roping in the Turks and the Iranians 0.85
00:18:49.020 because of the nature of their interests. 0.87
00:18:52.260 So what's happening in Iraq seems very weird to me.
00:18:57.120 I'm going to go and really look into, for my own clients and my own business really,
00:19:02.500 I'm going to really look into who's been arrested in Iraq and who do they represent.
00:19:07.920 I don't know the names of Iraqi MPs off the top of my head and 50 people were locked up.
00:19:13.680 Some of them are very prominent and they're connected to the Sunnis.
00:19:17.500 Others are connected to the Shia. 0.99
00:19:20.520 But it seems that somebody is trying to stir shit up in Iraq, basically. 0.94
00:19:24.140 And at the same time, we are seeing an attempt to really destabilize Lebanon. 0.91
00:19:32.240 Now, let me pause here and explain to you what happened in Lebanon and what kind of government runs Lebanon today.
00:19:41.760 After Hezbollah looked like it had lost the war against Israel,
00:19:45.700 and they had to basically sign a ceasefire agreement with the Israelis in September 2024,
00:19:54.140 which looked like a total surrender, a new government was imposed on Lebanon.
00:20:02.780 A new president was elected and a new prime minister was dominated. 0.51
00:20:07.120 To elect the president, Hezbollah's backing was required. 0.98
00:20:10.940 And so a deal was agreed. 0.90
00:20:12.800 A president that was kind of against Hezbollah would be installed.
00:20:18.880 And the prime minister that was kind of supportive of Hezbollah would also be installed.
00:20:23.860 And I won't bother you with the names.
00:20:25.660 You're not going to remember them.
00:20:27.680 But anyway, we ended up with this deal being made.
00:20:31.460 The president gets elected.
00:20:32.680 The next day, the Saudis and the Americans renege on their deal with the Iranians and with Hezbollah.
00:20:41.580 And instead of installing a prime minister that was kind of for Hezbollah,
00:20:45.620 they install a prime minister that is fully against Hezbollah, totally and completely against Hezbollah.
00:20:51.460 And then in order to have the cabinet ratified by parliament, what ends up happening is that the CVs of every prospective minister are literally sent to the U.S. embassy.
00:21:06.060 and the U.S. Embassy says that they have to be graduates of my alma mater, of the American
00:21:11.440 University of Beirut. And unless they're graduates of that university, meaning that
00:21:17.140 intelligence, U.S. intelligence has a file on them, they can't be appointed. And unless they're
00:21:23.600 approved by the U.S. Embassy, they can't be appointed as ministers. So for the first time,
00:21:29.020 Lebanon has ended up with a totally U.S. approved cabinet, including the ministers that are
00:21:35.800 supposed to represent Hezbollah and its allies. That's the cabinet running Lebanon, okay? It's a 0.69
00:21:43.900 totally U.S.-controlled, U.S.-dominated cabinet. And this cabinet decided to basically sign an
00:21:52.880 agreement with the Israelis that requires the disarmament of Hezbollah, which is
00:22:00.740 very dangerous because you have to understand hezbollah's ideology i've discussed the shia
00:22:10.080 thinking in the past and how the shia believe and behave uh i learned how arabic sounds are
00:22:16.540 made from you okay so the prime minister that was supposed to be installed was najib miqati
00:22:20.780 and the prime minister that ended up being installed was nawaf salam and salam is from
00:22:26.280 a family in Beirut that's always been in politics, but he was some kind of prosecutor at the ICJ,
00:22:32.560 I believe. And usually when you end up in these international institutions,
00:22:38.860 they completely compromise you. They completely compromise you. So anybody who comes out of the
00:22:45.740 UN or who comes out of the World Bank or IMF, these are guys that have been bought and paid for,
00:22:54.120 essentially and that prime minister nawaf salam he's in charge of the lebanese cabinet alongside
00:22:59.720 the president uh joseph on anyway the agreement that was signed is the kind of stuff that can 0.70
00:23:09.240 blow lebanon up basically because it requires the disarming of hezbollah and if you are shia
00:23:15.160 you have to believe in martyrdom and in what they called the victory of blood over the sword. 0.78
00:23:25.520 The foundation of Shia Islam is different from the foundation of Sunni Islam.
00:23:30.600 The foundational story of Christianity is Christ's peaceful self-sacrifice. 0.56
00:23:38.280 the foundational story of shia islam is hussein's violent self-sacrifice 0.52
00:23:46.620 and the foundational story of sunni islam is muhammad's conquests so these are completely
00:23:54.180 three completely different theological traditions because their starting point the the example that
00:24:02.260 you have to look up to if you're a christian you have to ask yourself what would jesus do
00:24:06.900 If you're a Sunni Muslim, what would Muhammad do?
00:24:09.340 If you're a Shia Muslim, what would Hussain do? 0.88
00:24:12.020 That's how to explain it. 0.91
00:24:13.660 And what Hussain did was basically pick up his sword
00:24:18.120 and go into an insanely uneven battle
00:24:20.780 knowing that he was going to die
00:24:22.940 and that his entire family was going to die with him. 1.00
00:24:27.140 So the Shia are sort of naturally suicidal, 1.00
00:24:30.900 whereas the Sunnis are naturally homicidal. 1.00
00:24:34.040 Big difference between them. 0.97
00:24:35.060 Even though it's the Sunnis who do most of the suicide bombings, but that's a different story. 0.97
00:24:40.900 So the thinking behind them is very different. 0.82
00:24:43.680 And making Hezbollah disarm means that they'd rather go into civil war, means that they'd rather fight this.
00:24:50.420 And that's what the agreement between Lebanon and Israel says.
00:24:53.980 First of all, the agreement says that Israel and Lebanon affirm the right of each state to exist in peace.
00:25:01.280 Lebanon never recognized the right of Israel to exist, let alone in peace.
00:25:07.980 So this is a huge step.
00:25:10.900 And most of the Arab world doesn't necessarily recognize Israel's right to exist, to begin with, let alone in peace. 0.99
00:25:20.320 In this sense, the Israelis are right. 0.99
00:25:22.840 The Arabs don't recognize the right to exist. 1.00
00:25:25.500 So for Lebanon to go, like, exist and in peace, that's a huge concession from the outset. 1.00
00:25:34.400 You may think that this is normal because you're thinking in a European context. 0.94
00:25:39.120 In a Middle Eastern context, it isn't. 1.00
00:25:41.480 So that's the first thing. 0.98
00:25:43.680 And then the agreement continues.
00:25:45.660 There's a bunch of babble. 0.70
00:25:48.240 But that means that the Lebanese state is going to end up in control of all of its territories. 0.66
00:25:54.140 That triggers two civil wars, not one.
00:25:57.320 Because the Lebanese state is not in control of the Shia parts of Lebanon.
00:26:02.000 And it's not in control of a lot of the Sunni parts of Lebanon either.
00:26:07.740 Including the Palestinian camps in Lebanon.
00:26:10.180 There's around a dozen Palestinian camps in Lebanon where the Palestinians are armed to the teeth and confined.
00:26:20.260 So they have their weapons, but they're fully surrounded by the army.
00:26:23.500 If you enjoyed this preview, please consider subscribing to lotusutress.com starting for just £5 a month.