00:02:01.700If you remember, the Patriot systems really underperformed against Iranian missiles.
00:02:09.500And so the Israelis moved the Patriots to Ukraine, which is a lesser priority for the United States.
00:02:16.440And the United States moved more THAAD systems to Israel with a view towards basically enabling a better air defense for the Israelis.
00:02:28.400That seems to be the priority right now.
00:02:31.700And these would be aimed both at attacks from the Houthi as well as from Iraq and Iran.
00:02:38.760Not just that, I think more worryingly, it seems that the United States is moving aerial tankers to Europe.
00:02:46.440If you look at the numbers, the first reports that I showed you said eight.
00:02:52.480But I think I see more than eight on this graphic here from the enforcer saying that more and more systems are being moved towards Europe
00:03:03.140And therefore, they would be closer to the theater in the Middle East, where they would play a role in refueling aircraft to enable more strikes on Iran.
00:03:15.760So these are pretty strong indicators.
00:03:21.060And last, we have the Pizzeria and Gay Bar indicator.
00:03:25.680The Pentagon Pizza Report, it's a great little account.
00:03:29.840It doesn't always get it right, but it's a strong indicator.
00:03:33.260When you see the Pentagon ordering a lot of pizzas on a Sunday night, it's a reason to worry.
00:03:40.500And when you see the Gay Bar that a lot of people in the Pentagon seem to go to being quite empty, it's a sign that something is cooking.
00:03:51.680That seems to point to some brewing preparations for escalation.
00:04:00.640Now, the context for this is that today, I think in around an hour's time or less than an hour, Trump and Netanyahu are set to meet.
00:04:08.680Trump is trying to force a peace agreement between Israel and Gaza, Israel and Hamas and Gaza, that would end the war there.
00:04:18.460The war, as you know, has been quite costly in terms of the reputation of Israel and in terms of the media war that Israel is fighting.
00:04:28.080The level of popularity of the Israelis has never been lower among most demographic groups in the United States and in the West.
00:04:37.300And Netanyahu will be saying, rather than ending the war in Gaza, he wants to go after the Iranians one more time in order to solve the issue with the nuclear program.
00:04:48.460So, if you remember, the nuclear program was not really destroyed by any means.
00:04:57.500What is being said by the Israelis now is that they know where the highly enriched uranium that Iran has is hidden.
00:05:08.920They think that the ability to enrich uranium might still be there.
00:05:14.480Netanyahu says that the aim of the June war was to destroy that.
00:05:18.640But the Iranians are saying they have other secret facilities that nobody knows about.
00:05:23.440So, the nuclear issue of Iran is really not resolved.
00:05:29.120And in Lebanon, Hezbollah is rebuilding.
00:05:32.420Talk about Hezbollah disarming completely.
00:05:35.760They're never going to do it willingly.
00:05:38.320And unless they're actually invaded and thrown out of the country, they're not going to do it.
00:05:44.060They're just going to work on rebuilding their capabilities with any means that they can.
00:05:48.340Yesterday, I was listening to the Secretary General of Hezbollah saying that, you know, we are well on our way to recovery.
00:05:56.420We are ready for another round for the Israelis if it's forced on us.
00:05:59.660So, as I said a couple of months ago on my blog on Madagio politics, nothing has really been resolved when it comes to Iran.
00:06:20.800In a way, it got stronger because it was attacked from outside.
00:06:25.280And there doesn't seem to be a resolution.
00:06:30.100Rather, instead, what we're seeing is that sanctions on Iran have been reimposed by the United Nations.
00:06:38.020If you remember the details of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal between Iran and the West, or between Iran and the Security Council plus Germany,
00:06:50.920what was done was that there was a mechanism established whereby just one of the countries involved could cancel the whole deal.
00:07:01.720And that was referred to as the snapback mechanism.
00:07:04.580The Europeans activated that snapback mechanism in August.
00:07:08.620And now Iran is again under full UN sanctions.
00:07:12.740But they're going to keep on selling oil to China.
00:07:16.160They're not going to stop anything that they're doing.
00:07:18.300And I can't imagine that in this environment, the Russians and the Chinese will stop backing Iran.
00:07:27.080Rather, I think every indicator shows that they're going to double down, which is why we are seeing these Antonov heavy lift aircraft going from Russia into Iran.
00:07:37.140Supposedly, they're carrying either air defense systems or Yak-130 training aircraft.
00:07:44.820Or maybe, you know, there are reports that MiG-29s are now in Iran with a view towards supplying them with Sukhoi-30s.
00:07:53.540The Yaks are an interesting one because these are a trainer aircraft.
00:07:57.420So they're not going to do very much against Israeli jets.
00:08:01.300What they could be used as, however, is platforms from which to launch missiles to interdict Israeli ordnance.
00:08:15.260If you guys want to correct me or tell me what they can and can't do, I'd be quite interested.
00:08:22.220But their training aircraft, they are used sometimes to fire ordnance.
00:08:26.340I wonder if they can be used in some kind of support for air defense capacity.
00:08:31.500Or I wonder if they can be used as platforms on which to place radars.
00:08:37.260And these radars would then enable the Iranians to have better visibility over their airspace and integrate with on-the-ground air defense systems.
00:08:46.900If somebody knows the details of this, I'd be extremely interested.
00:08:51.240But anyway, it seems that the Russians and the Chinese are busy rearming Iran and trying to boost its air defense systems.
00:09:02.040And if you're Israel or the United States and you see that the Iranian nuclear program is not destroyed,
00:09:08.420that Iran is still very strong in Iraq and that its strength in Lebanon is nowhere near what it used to be,
00:09:15.820but it's recovering, then as the American special envoy to Turkey and to Syria said,
00:09:23.560Tom Barak, you have to go after the head of the snake, which means going after Iran.
00:09:30.260And so one wonders if this is on the cards and if these indicators, the moving of refueling tankers,
00:09:37.940the boosting of air defense systems, and the pizza indicator and the gay bar indicator,
00:09:47.180I wonder if these are actually meaningful.
00:09:50.700Somebody saying that MiG-29s were intimidating in like 1975.