The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - June 30, 2026


PREVIEW LIVE： Realpolitik #53 ｜ Iran Wins Hormuz

Topics
Iranian dominance in the Gulf Iranian control of Hormuz
Hosted by
Callum Edmunds Carl Benjamin Connor Tomlinson Harry Robinson John Wheatley Joshua Ferme Edward McLaren Elizabeth Heverin
Mentioned
Hormuz Hussain Nawaf Salam JD Vance Muhammad
The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1450 Britain's Liminal Moment

Episode Stats


Length

26 minutes

Words per minute

143.44

Word count

3,800

Sentence count

204

Harmful content

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

86

sentences flagged


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 .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 hello and welcome to another episode of realpolitik i believe it's number 53 today
00:00:06 and we're going to be talking about the middle east unfortunately i want to do an episode on
00:00:11 latin america and what's going on there because there is a lot of interesting stuff happening
00:00:16 but over the weekend we saw the fireworks we saw the israelis and the lebanese signing an agreement
00:00:22 And we have to talk a little bit about that because a bunch of interesting things are slowly being confirmed.
00:00:31 Now, just to go over quickly what happened over the weekend.
00:00:36 uh first we saw some revelations from u.s media the wall street journal explaining that there
00:00:45 that the extent of damage that happened to uh israel and u.s bases um was substantial 400
00:00:54 million dollars in american terms 400 million dollars is really chump change but the key point
00:01:01 that's being raised is that it's making it questionable whether or not keeping those bases
00:01:07 in the region is worthwhile. And what's changing here is that the perception of Gulf states about
00:01:14 the ability of the United States to protect them is changing, which is really a success for the
00:01:22 Iranians. They showed the Gulf states that when they want to hammer them, they can do it. And 1.00
00:01:28 when they want to cause damage to them, they can do it. And of course, the damage to assets in the
00:01:35 Gulf states, energy assets and so on, some reporting says that this is considerably higher.
00:01:42 And it says that the Iranians might have taken 15, 20 billion dollars in damage, whereas the
00:01:49 Gulf states would have taken 60 billion dollars in damage. And that is a problem for them. This 0.63
00:01:56 isn't something that they can tolerate happening to them repeatedly, meaning that they need to 0.95
00:02:02 figure out a way to appease the Iranians. And that means more or less accepting the Iranian idea 0.84
00:02:10 that it's the Iranians who decide which ships manage to go through the Strait of Hormuz
00:02:17 and which ships do not. And we saw the Americans trying to contest that over the weekend,
00:02:22 because this is really what it was all about. Over the weekend, what happened was that the
00:02:30 United States was trying to get the ships in Hormuz to go through the corridor adjacent to Oman.
00:02:41 They're basically hugging the coast of Oman and the UAE and then exiting into the Indian Ocean
00:02:49 by that route. And the Iranians decided that they were going to hit one of the ships that was doing
00:02:56 that. I think they disabled its engine room. The Americans said that the Iranians fired four
00:03:02 drones and that they intercepted three, but one of them hit the ship. So they couldn't actually
00:03:07 defend the ship. And the U.S. retaliated. And then the next day, the Iranians attacked American bases
00:03:15 and then they attacked another ship. 0.92
00:03:19 The logic behind it, essentially,
00:03:22 is that the Iranians are saying
00:03:24 that if you go through Hormuz without approval,
00:03:27 we're just going to attack your ship. 0.99
00:03:30 We're just going to blow it up. 0.68
00:03:32 And for the insurance market and for the shippers,
00:03:36 this is a major problem 0.95
00:03:37 because most of them would rather
00:03:39 not have to go through this headache
00:03:41 and they don't want to take that kind of risk because ship captains want to make it alive and
00:03:50 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 can kill everybody on the ship if they chose to do so. So the Americans and the Iranians exchanged 1.00
00:04:02 missiles and the U.S. bombed various sites in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz in order to make
00:04:10 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 want to escalate into a full-scale war over this, and that if ships go through the Strait of Hormuz
00:04:25 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 a day, you can pretty much choke the traffic completely. And if you look at the geography,
00:04:40 The Iranians are hitting ships in this immediate area of the strait.
00:04:46 But you have to remember, again, the nature of the terrain.
00:04:50 You have to remember the geography of the place.
00:04:53 All over the coast of Iran, you have these mountains and hills
00:04:58 that are full of caves and warehouses and things like that, 0.95
00:05:04 where the Iranians can just hide a few drones, 0.93
00:05:07 and they can attack ships pretty much anywhere in that area. 0.89
00:05:12 So if a ship is coming out of Kuwait or Basra
00:05:14 and wants to go through Hormuz, 0.98
00:05:18 the Iranians will know about it. 0.71
00:05:22 If it doesn't pay the toll, 1.00
00:05:23 they can attack them here in Hormuz as they've been doing,
00:05:26 but in this area, they're not safe either.
00:05:29 And so the two sides seem to be focusing the battle
00:05:32 in the very narrow area of the strait,
00:05:35 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 So we are still in the signaling phase of this war.
00:05:55 And even though Trump keeps on making these blood-curdling threats
00:05:59 that he's going to destroy Iran and destroy the Islamic Republic,
00:06:03 the reality is that there isn't enough oil and storage for him to be able to do that.
00:06:10 And for the Iranians, they're taking advantage of the ceasefire in this negotiating period
00:06:14 to cement their position and to normalize the idea that if you go through Hormuz,
00:06:20 you have to get IRGC approval. And if you start getting used to that, then it just becomes the
00:06:29 new normal. And when the 60-day ceasefire expires, the Iranians will say, well, we only agreed 0.92
00:06:36 not to levy fees for the first 60 days of the ceasefire. If you want the ceasefire extended,
00:06:42 then all of the ships that go through are going to have to pay fees. And this spills over into
00:06:48 the sanctions conversation. Because if you're a shipper, you can't pay the Iranians if they're 1.00
00:06:55 under sanctions. And if the Americans try to enforce the sanctions, we go back to where we 0.93
00:07:01 are right now, at a time when the petroleum reserves globally would have declined further. 0.97
00:07:10 So over time, it suits the Iranians to maximize their leverage now and to force the issue now 0.87
00:07:17 rather than to wait for the ceasefire period to expire 0.70
00:07:21 and then try to say, well, you know, the new rules apply as of today. 0.94
00:07:27 So what the Iranians are doing, they're saying to shippers
00:07:30 that even as of today, if you want to go through Hormuz, 0.91
00:07:36 you have to give us notice.
00:07:37 If you don't give us notice, you might end up being attacked.
00:07:41 So that when the 60 days expire, you no longer have to just give notice.
00:07:47 you have to give notice and pay. And what we're seeing from how the Iranians are fighting this 0.95
00:07:54 war or how they fought this war, everybody talks about how the Iranians attacked the Gulf a lot
00:08:00 more than they attacked Israel. Fair enough. There's a military reason for that, which is that 1.00
00:08:05 the nearest bases to Iran are in the Gulf. But there's also a geographic reason and a strategic
00:08:12 reason, which is that what the Iranians are trying to do is to say to the world, we dominate
00:08:19 the entire Gulf, or at least we dominate all of the small states of the Gulf except for Saudi
00:08:25 Arabia. And we'll get back to Saudi Arabia and Yemen and what's going on there and how the
00:08:30 Saudis can essentially be brought into line, or so the Iranians would hope. So what the Iranians 0.99
00:08:37 are saying is that we're mainly a Gulf power. The power of Iran comes from its control over 0.96
00:08:45 the Persian Gulf and over the straits around the Persian Gulf, and that means that the Iranians 1.00
00:08:52 can influence the 20% of global oil exports that pass through Hormuz, and that makes them a major
00:09:00 player. So that between them and the Russians and the Saudis, they decide what happens in the oil
00:09:07 markets. And with the Saudis being at a bit of a disadvantage because they are surrounded
00:09:12 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 Iranians are playing. They're trying to say that they dominate the Gulf, that they are the ones 1.00
00:09:25 in charge of the Gulf. And given that the United States, every time this happens, shows that it
00:09:32 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 basically going on their terms, more or less. And they're saying now that there's a ceasefire,
00:09:48 that there's going to be a hotline between Iran and the United States at a military-to-military
00:09:53 level so that they can de-conflict. But all that that means is that the Iranians will be giving 0.82
00:09:59 notice that they're going to be attacking ships. Because fundamentally, the issue is this. The 0.70
00:10:05 issue is that for the United States, if it is no longer the policeman of the seas, then it is no
00:10:12 longer the global superpower. That's the main problem. The U.S.'s power comes from its domination
00:10:19 over the sea lanes. And if a middling power like Iran gets to decide who passes through 0.99
00:10:26 international shipping ways, then Turkey can do that to the Bosphorus, Singapore and Malaysia 0.76
00:10:33 and Indonesia can do that in the Strait of Malacca, etc., etc., etc. So it's a game changer,
00:10:41 basically. And as I've said before, the power of the dollar rests on the perception that the
00:10:50 United States is the global hegemon. If it can't police the seas and its navy isn't capable of
00:10:55 stopping a state like Iran, it's a real problem. So it's genuinely surprising to me that the 0.99
00:11:02 Americans aren't escalating this. It's really a surprise because what they are giving up
00:11:08 is enormous.
00:11:11 It's really enormous.
00:11:13 They're giving up their claim
00:11:14 to be the world's policemen.
00:11:17 And that's been the status
00:11:20 since the end of the Second World War.
00:11:22 They're giving it up
00:11:24 without enough of a fight,
00:11:26 shall we say.
00:11:28 So let's see how this plays out.
00:11:31 But there's another angle to this,
00:11:33 which you're going to call me crazy
00:11:34 for saying this,
00:11:35 but we'll talk again in five years' time.
00:11:38 which is that five to ten years timeline,
00:11:43 the Iranians and the Israelis are natural allies.
00:11:46 And that's the angle that changes this dynamic.
00:11:50 But we'll talk about that maybe later.
00:11:53 So the Iranians are saying, or the Americans are saying,
00:11:57 that the Iranians have recovered their ability to defend the airspaces. 0.82
00:12:02 And it seems that the Iranians can enforce the closure of Hormuz whenever they want it.
00:12:08 And what's surprising is that as this ceasefire seemed to break down,
00:12:12 the U.S. didn't even threaten to reimpose the blockade on Iran
00:12:15 or to reimpose sanctions on Iran,
00:12:18 which are cards that are still available to the United States.
00:12:22 So the Americans are tolerating this,
00:12:25 either because they want to or because they can't do anything about it.
00:12:30 And so we're seeing that in this battle, 0.80
00:12:33 the Iranians are winning control of Hormuz.
00:12:36 and when ships go through without their permission, 0.85
00:12:42 they just smash them.
00:12:44 They just fire things at them.
00:12:46 And you get J.D. Vance saying,
00:12:47 oh, no, we don't, you know, 1.00
00:12:50 the Iranians should be talking 1.00
00:12:51 instead of just blowing things up. 1.00
00:12:55 Why?
00:12:57 Blowing things up forces the other guy to talk to you, right?
00:13:01 That's how these dynamics work.
00:13:03 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 escort ships but because trump needs a deal on the nuclear stuff because otherwise he has to go
00:13:18 back to the war if he doesn't get a deal on the nuclear stuff the iranians are betting that they
00:13:25 can get control of Hormuz out of this. And then they become the dominant player in the Gulf and
00:13:33 they become the dominant player in Iraq and they secure their position. And from the nationalist
00:13:41 Iranian perspective, geographically that makes a lot more sense than focusing on Lebanon, for example.
00:13:48 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 iraq over the weekend suddenly the new prime minister of iraq decided to lock up 47 prominent
00:14:12 Iraqi politicians from across the political spectrum on charges of corruption.
00:14:22 Iraq, like the level of corruption in Iraq is legendary even by Middle Eastern standards. 0.78
00:14:30 So in the Middle East, everybody's corrupt. Corruption is perfectly normal. 1.00
00:14:34 You know, you have to pay bribes for pretty much everything.
00:14:37 fine, fine, but even then there are degrees. Even then there are levels. And Iraq is legendary for
00:14:47 its corruption by Middle Eastern standards. So for a new prime minister to come in, 1.00
00:14:53 kind of backed by the Iranians, and to decide to lock up a bunch of serious politicians on 0.94
00:15:00 corruption charges, is very unusual, extremely unusual. And it's also very unusual because at 0.57
00:15:08 the same time, the Iraqi government are saying that within three months, basically, they are
00:15:15 going to remove all of the weapons that are in the hands of the various militias.
00:15:22 Now, obviously, the most important militias are the ones that are controlled by Iran.
00:15:27 and so that seems like a very bold move for a new iraqi prime minister and it seems that the
00:15:39 nature of the fight is changing i've heard some people saying that the americans are trying to
00:15:44 iraq so that they can uh prepare a ground invasion into iran because really uh physically the only
00:15:54 place where you can build up forces for a ground invasion against Iran is Iraq. Afghanistan,
00:16:01 logistically impossible, given that it's landlocked. Iraq is the next alternative. 1.00
00:16:06 That seems stupid. Let me just off the bat say that that seems completely stupid. 1.00
00:16:12 Because in order to build up forces in Iraq, you need to get them there by sea, maybe, 0.99
00:16:18 through the Persian Gulf. Not going to happen. Or you need to get them there by land,
00:16:23 through Syria, at which point you become insanely vulnerable to the militias in Iraq backed by Iran
00:16:32 because there are only two roads going in, or three roads to be precise, going in from Syria
00:16:41 into Iraq, which is this one here via Rutba and the Bukmal Qaim one, and the one controlled by
00:16:49 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 convoys into Syrian ports, offload them, and then send them into Iraq, you're going to get smashed 0.88
00:17:04 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 what's happening in Iraq. And if the idea is to use the new government to try to instigate turmoil
00:17:19 within Iraq as part of a bid to displace the Iranians by having another proxy war in Iraq. 0.78
00:17:27 Maybe. I don't know. I've only started seeing this reporting over the weekend, 0.69
00:17:33 and I haven't done enough of my homework around it. But in the past, we've seen these kinds of
00:17:41 plays that happen in order to instigate conflict, and it is a possibility. 0.58
00:17:47 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 And so him turning on the Iranians doesn't seem clear, doesn't seem very straightforward.
00:18:06 It doesn't, it isn't obvious what's happening.
00:18:10 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 That's a possibility.
00:18:28 But in that case, we are looking at another civil war in Iraq, basically,
00:18:35 not just between different sects, but within the Shia sect. 0.84
00:18:42 And that is something that will end up roping in the Turks and the Iranians 0.85
00:18:49 because of the nature of their interests. 0.87
00:18:52 So what's happening in Iraq seems very weird to me.
00:18:57 I'm going to go and really look into, for my own clients and my own business really,
00:19:02 I'm going to really look into who's been arrested in Iraq and who do they represent.
00:19:07 I don't know the names of Iraqi MPs off the top of my head and 50 people were locked up.
00:19:13 Some of them are very prominent and they're connected to the Sunnis.
00:19:17 Others are connected to the Shia. 0.99
00:19:20 But it seems that somebody is trying to stir shit up in Iraq, basically. 0.94
00:19:24 And at the same time, we are seeing an attempt to really destabilize Lebanon. 0.91
00:19:32 Now, let me pause here and explain to you what happened in Lebanon and what kind of government runs Lebanon today.
00:19:41 After Hezbollah looked like it had lost the war against Israel,
00:19:45 and they had to basically sign a ceasefire agreement with the Israelis in September 2024,
00:19:54 which looked like a total surrender, a new government was imposed on Lebanon.
00:20:02 A new president was elected and a new prime minister was dominated. 0.51
00:20:07 To elect the president, Hezbollah's backing was required. 0.98
00:20:10 And so a deal was agreed. 0.90
00:20:12 A president that was kind of against Hezbollah would be installed.
00:20:18 And the prime minister that was kind of supportive of Hezbollah would also be installed.
00:20:23 And I won't bother you with the names.
00:20:25 You're not going to remember them.
00:20:27 But anyway, we ended up with this deal being made.
00:20:31 The president gets elected.
00:20:32 The next day, the Saudis and the Americans renege on their deal with the Iranians and with Hezbollah.
00:20:41 And instead of installing a prime minister that was kind of for Hezbollah,
00:20:45 they install a prime minister that is fully against Hezbollah, totally and completely against Hezbollah.
00:20:51 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 and the U.S. Embassy says that they have to be graduates of my alma mater, of the American
00:21:11 University of Beirut. And unless they're graduates of that university, meaning that
00:21:17 intelligence, U.S. intelligence has a file on them, they can't be appointed. And unless they're
00:21:23 approved by the U.S. Embassy, they can't be appointed as ministers. So for the first time,
00:21:29 Lebanon has ended up with a totally U.S. approved cabinet, including the ministers that are
00:21:35 supposed to represent Hezbollah and its allies. That's the cabinet running Lebanon, okay? It's a 0.69
00:21:43 totally U.S.-controlled, U.S.-dominated cabinet. And this cabinet decided to basically sign an
00:21:52 agreement with the Israelis that requires the disarmament of Hezbollah, which is
00:22:00 very dangerous because you have to understand hezbollah's ideology i've discussed the shia
00:22:10 thinking in the past and how the shia believe and behave uh i learned how arabic sounds are
00:22:16 made from you okay so the prime minister that was supposed to be installed was najib miqati
00:22:20 and the prime minister that ended up being installed was nawaf salam and salam is from
00:22:26 a family in Beirut that's always been in politics, but he was some kind of prosecutor at the ICJ,
00:22:32 I believe. And usually when you end up in these international institutions,
00:22:38 they completely compromise you. They completely compromise you. So anybody who comes out of the
00:22:45 UN or who comes out of the World Bank or IMF, these are guys that have been bought and paid for,
00:22:54 essentially and that prime minister nawaf salam he's in charge of the lebanese cabinet alongside
00:22:59 the president uh joseph on anyway the agreement that was signed is the kind of stuff that can 0.70
00:23:09 blow lebanon up basically because it requires the disarming of hezbollah and if you are shia
00:23:15 you have to believe in martyrdom and in what they called the victory of blood over the sword. 0.78
00:23:25 The foundation of Shia Islam is different from the foundation of Sunni Islam.
00:23:30 The foundational story of Christianity is Christ's peaceful self-sacrifice. 0.56
00:23:38 the foundational story of shia islam is hussein's violent self-sacrifice 0.52
00:23:46 and the foundational story of sunni islam is muhammad's conquests so these are completely
00:23:54 three completely different theological traditions because their starting point the the example that
00:24:02 you have to look up to if you're a christian you have to ask yourself what would jesus do
00:24:06 If you're a Sunni Muslim, what would Muhammad do?
00:24:09 If you're a Shia Muslim, what would Hussain do? 0.88
00:24:12 That's how to explain it. 0.91
00:24:13 And what Hussain did was basically pick up his sword
00:24:18 and go into an insanely uneven battle
00:24:20 knowing that he was going to die
00:24:22 and that his entire family was going to die with him. 1.00
00:24:27 So the Shia are sort of naturally suicidal, 1.00
00:24:30 whereas the Sunnis are naturally homicidal. 1.00
00:24:34 Big difference between them. 0.97
00:24:35 Even though it's the Sunnis who do most of the suicide bombings, but that's a different story. 0.97
00:24:40 So the thinking behind them is very different. 0.82
00:24:43 And making Hezbollah disarm means that they'd rather go into civil war, means that they'd rather fight this.
00:24:50 And that's what the agreement between Lebanon and Israel says.
00:24:53 First of all, the agreement says that Israel and Lebanon affirm the right of each state to exist in peace.
00:25:01 Lebanon never recognized the right of Israel to exist, let alone in peace.
00:25:07 So this is a huge step.
00:25:10 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 In this sense, the Israelis are right. 0.99
00:25:22 The Arabs don't recognize the right to exist. 1.00
00:25:25 So for Lebanon to go, like, exist and in peace, that's a huge concession from the outset. 1.00
00:25:34 You may think that this is normal because you're thinking in a European context. 0.94
00:25:39 In a Middle Eastern context, it isn't. 1.00
00:25:41 So that's the first thing. 0.98
00:25:43 And then the agreement continues.
00:25:45 There's a bunch of babble. 0.70
00:25:48 But that means that the Lebanese state is going to end up in control of all of its territories. 0.66
00:25:54 That triggers two civil wars, not one.
00:25:57 Because the Lebanese state is not in control of the Shia parts of Lebanon.
00:26:02 And it's not in control of a lot of the Sunni parts of Lebanon either.
00:26:07 Including the Palestinian camps in Lebanon.
00:26:10 There's around a dozen Palestinian camps in Lebanon where the Palestinians are armed to the teeth and confined.
00:26:20 So they have their weapons, but they're fully surrounded by the army.
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