Israel Strikes Iran

Emergency pod obviously because uh, Israel has struck Iran. Uh, they have struck Iran's nuclear site to. In singular sites.

So like, take everything with a grain of salt. The hardest part of doing analysis at this part of, in this cycle of a, of a, of an attack like this is we don't even know what we know. Um, so, but yeah, we'll try and parse through it.

But the difference between day one analysis and day five analysis is often very, very profound. And it's because over the next five days, you're likely to have your fate in your framework shaken. Think about April 2nd, reciprocal tariffs. What happened over the course of the next five days? I mean, most people said no. I mean, they're serious. They're not gonna negotiate. Look, Peter Navarro's on TV is saying they're not.

That's because both sides at this point right now, Israel, Iran, us, everybody has an interest in, um, fronting in saying, hold me back. You know, I got more than you think I have. Anyways, uh, sorry to interrupt on that, but like, let's, let's go over everything that's happened.

So, um, yeah, there's reports that Israel used, actually a ground incursion. There's reports that there were, uh, actually some Israeli commanders commandos that they have might have taken some of the scientists, uh, from what I understand, there's two, uh, very high ranking military officials in Iran. They have been targeted for assassination. Uh, several, uh, Iranian military bases were struck. Um, multiple strikes in Tehran.

I'm not clear what, other than of course, some of the residential areas where, uh, officials were living like scientists and, and, and military policymakers and so on. Naans, Fordo, not the bushy hair and nuclear power plant from what I understand. Um, of course that one is legitimately for civilian use, although everything is of course part of the nuclear program. Um, I dunno, am I missing anything else on Israel's? Oh yeah. 200 fighter jets were involved.

Doesn't seem that refueling, uh, planes were involved, but they probably were, I think, uh, US has delivered one to Israel.

Then you've got a Deputy Commander of the Armed Forces, um, a head of the airspace unit of the IRGC taken out, um, one, at least one politician has been taken out. Um, Ali Shahani, who is an influential Iranian politician. He's a close confidant of the Supreme leader. He was overseeing the nuclear talks with the United States, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. Like not just an assault on Iran, but an an assault on the nuclear deal. And the negotiations itself on, on

He was on my podcast a couple weeks ago and he talked about how when Assad fell, one of the things Israel did was it very quietly bombed the shit out of Syrian air defense so that Syria skies are basically open to Israel if it wants them to be. So part of me is thinking maybe what made this a little more realistic than even I would've given Israel credit for, is maybe they're able to refuel over Syria or maybe they're less worried about incurring things over Syria.

Um, and then the other, the other part that I would, um, add to your summary of what happened is the sort of. I, I, I don't wanna say strange, but the US role in all of this, because the initial response last night when you and I were texting was from Marco Rubio. That was basically Israel took unilateral action. We are not involved with this. Iran should not attack us. And then you wake up to Trump on truth socials saying, I gave Iran a chance.

Uh, they could still make a deal if they want, but there's more coming and Israel is like gonna, you know, basically destroy them. Um, and then you had Axios Wall Street Journal reporting this morning that, that not only. Um, is, is the United States okay with this, but that the United States knew and that the United States participated in the deception to lull Iran into a false sense of security by telling them it's not gonna happen. There's gonna be more time here.

United States is not for this. I don't know quite how to run that down. Um, I think you're also right to point out that, um, there are multiple Israeli security sources that are talking about the Mossad being on the ground in Iran in much the same way that Ukraine was on the ground in Russia with their big attack. So, you know, precision guided. Weapons located next to Iranians, surface to air missile systems, um, drones, uh, actual commando units going after scientists, things like that.

Um, and I think part of that, there, there's two parts of that. Number one, and I, I was just talking to an Iranian security expert for, for my other podcast. Um, it's a sophisticated social media and publicity campaign too, because Israel is all over Persian social media, putting out things about how this is an assault on the regime, not on the Iranian people. That the, the Iranian regime has been attacking you. Israel is attacking this and sort of sowing those seeds of doubt.

Um, but yeah, obviously a huge intelligence operation that had to come forward there too.

And then the last thing I would just add to the summary, and I'm curious, I mean, I'm curious for your takes on all of this, um, uh, Marco, but in some ways, one of the most. Blunt statements about what Israel has done thus far. 'cause if you like the French, I dunno if you saw Macron's statement, he was like, we condemn Iran and its nuclear program, like relatively softy from some of these other countries.

But Saudi Arabia, I will quote, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's, ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses its strong condemnation in denunciation of blatant Israeli aggression against the brotherly Islamic Republic of Iran, which undermines sovereignty and security and constitute a clear violation, right, of international law and norms.

So the Saudis that's at least rhetorically, like slapping the Israelis on the wrist, maybe behind the scenes Mohammad bin Salman, is like popping the champagne on the yacht. I don't know, but, uh, yeah, that, that's at least my list of things. Also, to add to what you said,

Yeah. It was about war in Iran. Um, so the, I've said many times this year and last year, Iran and Israel can go at it. They can do whatever they want to each other, and nothing will happen to the rest of the world. So this is a very important point. Iran and Israel can have a full out war for the next two years, and it may be like a tree that falls in the forest that nobody hears.

Um, but other, other than that, I mean, look, um, the way that this conflict articulates itself in oil prices, in gold prices, in stock prices is that Iran has to close the straits or for moose. And if the Houthis can close the Red Sea, you know, uh, if the Houthis can do that to the Red Sea, I mean, Iran could do that to the Straits of Remus. And I just wanna explain this because this is kind of complicated.

Iran cannot really conventionally retaliate successfully, at least against Israel or really anyone. Uh, it can, you know, shoot some ballistic missiles and drones. You know, that's unfortunate for people on the receiving end, but it's not tragic.

You know?

They're undefended. So you can, you can really make it difficult for ships to transit with very low sophistication. Houthis have proven that, and so while Iran has no ability to conventionally fight a war with really Israel or c conventionally to threaten American forces in the region, they just don't. They have enough sophistication to close shipping causal oppresses to go up, but they haven't done it. Why? Because, because of two reasons.

One, that will invite massive retaliation from the United States of America, the kind that turns you into a parking lot. Iran has no way to defend against that. So it's kind of crossing the Rubicon that is the nuclear option. Actually, it's not nuclear weapons. It will be closing the streets of, once you do that, you know it's fair game. At that point, even China's like, Hey America, please can you turn Iran into a parking lot? So that's the first issue.

The second issue is that it would tip the scales of conflict in the region so vastly against Iran because it would invite Saudi participation. As you point out, Iran is holding on to some very nice juicy assets for the long term. One of them is Iraq. It's holding on to Iraq because the Saudis effectively seeded Iraq to Iran when they negotiated their 2022 Deante. And so there's a quid pro quo.

Saudi Arabia said to Iran, you can have Iraq, you can control it through your proxies, political and militant, but you leave us alone. No more drone attacks against our energy facilities. And notice that this Detant has held from October 7th, 2023 onwards. It's held through the Iranis Israel missile strikes in 2024. They were unprecedented and the people thought would cause oil prices to go through the roof. They didn't.

It's held throughout the Houthis who are allied with Iran, not proxies, allied throughout the HTI drone campaign against shipping in the Red Sea. Notice how all the drones went south, as if their joystick controls are stuck in the south position. None of them went north to Saudi facilities or Persian Gulf. Why not? I mean, hey, Houthis, if you wanna make a big splash about what's going on in Gaza, shut down the streets of ous. It's kind of equidistant to the Red Sea.

So why haven't the Houthis done that? Because Iran told them not to. Iran and Saudi Arabia have a Deante, and it's a very important one, and it's the most important part of this story to today. It's not about Israeli capabilities or cool special forces or the next movie that will be directed about like their incursion. Like everyone's like obsessing about silly little military stuff.

The most important question is what will happen in terms of Iranian retaliation and will they rip off the bandaid? Will they cross the Rubicon, whatever analogy you want, and attack Saudi facilities and shipping through the per of Gulf? And my answer is no. And that's why that Saudi statement is so important because the Saudis are saying like, look guys, like this is between you Actually, no, they're not even saying that. They're actually saying like, yo, Israel, Israel is the bad guy.

They're straight up saying Israel's the bad guy. Yeah. Uh, which is not that much of a shift. I mean, they've been saying that really since October 7th, uh, and throughout 2024, although they did participate allegedly in shooting down some projectiles that were flying over Saudi territory. And, you know, uh, the way they justified that to Iran is like, Hey man, like. You don't need to fly over Saudi Arabia to hit Israel, you know, like, look at a map, bro.

Like, so please don't, you know, like, like, yeah, we're gonna defend our airspace. Like that's, so that wasn't really, like a lot of people in the West thought that this was pro Israeli. It's not, uh, they're defending their airspace. So I think this is why Jacob, my hot take on this is Iran does have the capability to disrupt shipping and cause oil prices to go up a hundred dollars. But there's two things that if they do that, there's two bad effects that will happen to them.

America, American military is not as hot as people think it is. But let me be very, very clear. There's one thing that the United States of America does better than any country in history. I mean, and, and not better. Like it's number one, it's like number one, 2000.

Nobody pulverizes you from 30,000 feet like the US Air Force, when America doesn't care about in invading, when America doesn't care about putting, uh, boots on the ground when it doesn't care what you do to your own people, when it doesn't care about turning you into Wisconsin and making sure you have like Wendy's on every corner. When America just wants to flatten you, it's, it's unrivaled. And so if Iran crosses that Rubicon, it will be punished.

And then the second issue is that if they cross it, if they get on the bedside of Saudi Arabia, they tilt the regional balance vastly against themselves. Basically Saudi resources, but also Saudi intelligence capabilities in Iraq. Will they be activated against Iranian interests? And then, you know, it's really game over for a little semblance of hegemony that Iran still has.

'cause I've eaten enough of those cheeseburgers and I'm on a perpetual quest as a Jew to find the greatest cheeseburger in the history of the world, which is, you know, you as you know, funny for lots of different reasons. We can get into that another time.

Um, well, I, I have two or three things I wanna say in response to what you said. 'cause I, I can get along with most of what you said, but I, I, I wanna, I wanna think about it also from a different angle, which is, um, it seems to me analytically, or one of the things I'm trying to parse is, was this an attack on Iran's nuclear capability? To set it back or to wipe it out, or is this really an attempt at regime change? Because Israel has also said, look, this is not a one day thing.

We're ready to go for the next two weeks, and the Israeli population is ready to endure whatever it has to do for the next two weeks. We took out. All those guys that I mentioned in the first wave, you also saw what we did to Hezbollah. Like the unsaid thing there is supreme leader ham hamani. Where are you? Do you feel safe where you are President of Iran, where are you? Do you feel safe where you are? You shouldn't.

Um, and this is the other thing I, uh, that's sort of part of this, which is, um, you know, Iran's military dilapidated fine, but this is not just about an inability to, um, to have conventional offensive. Counter attack capability. It looks like Israel has just decimated their ability to defend themselves.

Yes. I mean, at, at least here on June 3rd at 10 o'clock in the morning like this, I, I don't wanna say it's a little cavalier for me to say that Iranian skies belong to Israel, but Israel is hitting whatever it wants, however, often it wants with fighter jets that I know can't, like, you know, these are long distance flights that the Israelis are having to take.

So unless they're secretly going off a carrier, a US carrier, or out of Azerbaijan or something like that, aggregators, I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm just saying unless there's some secret here we don't know about. Like, you know, they're going along, along sort distance.

And then the second thing I just wanna say, and then you can take the wheel, is, you know, you said the nuclear option was a straight of whom. This now gets to the question of how far advanced is Iran with a nuclear weapon itself? Because if it's advanced enough to where. The supreme leader was just saying, don't do the final screws, because I want to be able to have this negotiation process.

But if it could be very simply just sort of, Hey, let's complete the process really fast and have a bomb, the thing that strikes me is Iran's back is against the wall. Their, their conventional defenses have failed. They have no legitimate counter attack that they can go to any attack that they do on, you know, Persian Gulf shipping. Anything else like that is gonna bring down the goat of long-range bombardment on them, or is gonna break the Saudi thing, which is the goat.

Yeah, it would be really nice to have a nuclear deterrent right now. This is the whole reason they want the nuclear deterrent. Their proxies, by the way, are also gone. Hezbollah's sitting it out. Houthis know where to be found. They're not gonna affect this. So if you could have a nuke, like now would be the time to show it off and say, okay, if you keep coming at us, like here's a dirty bomb for you. Like, we will go this far.

Like I, I was sort of having that crazy thought that I was as I was thinking about all that anyway. No, that's not crazy at all.

You had Saudi Arabia raid. I mean, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, America we're all on the same side, you know? So that's, that's a good example of what happens, why you don't wanna isolate yourself. There's also actual militants on the territory of Syria. So this isn't, I, I, I've heard this regime change theory a lot today, and I just, you know, I don't think that that's where Israel is able to go, but it doesn't matter.

Look, let's, let's, let's array some of the things that you've said. Um, in terms of military capabilities, Israel has some refueling capacity. Boeing seven oh sevens, they haven't received the kc uh, uh, kcs yet. Uh, which, uh, they, they've had an order since 2020, so, uh, that hasn't been delivered actually yet. So they have some domestic ones, but it's not. It's not as, uh, sophisticated as what the Americans would give them if they actually delivered, uh, the US airplanes.

So they, they're gonna have to do this in waves of fighter jets. Mm-hmm. The problem with fighter jets is that they're, uh, vulnerable to air defenses. And this is where your point is so critical. Where is Iran's vaunted? S3 hundreds? They've clearly been disabled. Last year's attack that Israel performed, if you remember, it was a single strike and everybody was kind of confused what the single strike was.

It apparently targeted the Raider installations for the S3 hundreds sending a message to Iran that we can blind you. So, um, it appears that that's what's happened. So it's fine. Like Israel now has control over skies, as you said. The problem for Israel is that its tools for navigated Iran's skies are still, uh, limited attacking with fighter jets, there's a problem. You have to, they have to be fully loaded with fuel.

Which means they cannot carry as much ordinance and the ordinance that they carry is limited, particularly because the US as is now very much known and has been known for decades, the US has not provided Israel with the bunker buster technology that's required to fully damage Fordo. Fordo is 40 meters underground, some say half a mile. Uh, I didn't know that. I thought it was just 40 meters. Doesn't matter. Many of the tunnels are 90 degree angles.

You know, bunker buster technology can't deal with that. You need what the Americans have, which, which can completely destroy much deeper, much wider range of penetration. That's not what Israelis have. So, um, this attack ultimately is not going to completely destroy Iran's nuclear program. I think that there's limits to how much Israel can do, and that's why I think that ultimately we have to also consider that both sides are limited in what they can do.

And that's where the US is so important. In a way Israel wants to draw Americans in. This is all, this has been for a long time a theory like what if Israel just done ki does kind of like a halfway attack, hopes that Iran retaliates in a way that matters to America, like attacks the base. The air base in Qatar attacks the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama, Bahrain. You know, the military bases in Iraq are, I think, fair game at this point. It's fine. Iran has attacked them before many times.

Uh, but if Iran retaliates against the US or shipping interest in the streets of MOUs, then this attacks from a strategic perspective for Israel is a win. If it doesn't, it's kind of like not a win. In fact, it probably accelerates the nuclear program, as you pointed out, um, where Iran needs that breakout capacity as soon as possible.

But that's not always gonna be the case. Like we, we did our geopolitical power ranking a couple of episodes ago, and I left Israel off the top 20 because I said, I mean, they're there today, but 20, 30 years from now, like, we don't think that some of these other countries are gonna be able to develop either nuclear weapons or drone technologies, or do the things that Israel is doing to Iran. And now Israel's done it first.

So, you know, like if, if you, if you are Iran, or let's say you're Turkey or some jihadist group in the future, like the precedent has, al has already been broken. So I don't know, maybe people don't care about precedents, but the continued breakdown of international norms, which is also part of that Saudi statement, like the, the rules are gone. Like, it's okay, fine. Like go, go like bomb Iran. There's gonna be no like consequences, like nobody's going to punish you for it.

And well Iran, nobody's gonna see like,

Deficiencies that it has. Of course, the nuclear program is also more than just centrifuges. It's

I mean, God bless him. He can do whatever he wants, you know, that's, that's his, that's his choice. The issue though is that he does over the long term, it, it doesn't, like his domestic political logic is likely not this. It, it is not as beneficial for Israel in the long term. And that is something I, I would point out as well.

I mean, if oftentimes domestic political logic will impede the geopolitical goals over the long term, and I think one of the, one of the problems here is that, um, it's not clear to me that regime change would change anything for Israel. Iran, Iran. In Iran. Yes. And, and, and, and I think, I think any country in this region is likely going to want to have a nuclear weapon like after this attack. That's,

Is, uh, I mean, Israel's wanted, you know, some kind of, you know, Jordan or Egypt level relationship with Syria since literally the 1970s and hasn't been able to get it because Assad was, you know, sort of sticking to those old things. So if you can, and you know, now Syria is led by some former Jihadists, uh, and like, they're gonna be willing to sit down with Israel to reach some kind of agreement, probably, yes.

'cause they don't want to keep getting bombed by their more sophisticated neighbor. They're gonna play a longer game going forward. But I think if you, if you could take down like the theocratic, you know, thuggish element that runs Iran, and if you could get secularists and power, I mean, that would be pretty powerful for, for Israel, I think. I think that would be a really big deal.

Within the Iranian political establishment already.

But also think back to the Rouhani government and how Rouhani was trying to take the reins away from the IRGC and he got his sort of hand slapped on it. I was also, I was talking to this, uh, Iranian security expert before we got on, and he talked about to him one of the most. Impressive things about what Israel was doing was a sophisticated social media campaign in Persian going after Iranian social media. And he said there were basically two like feelings on Iranian social media.

One was, this is not good. We don't wanna be attacked by Israel. You, you know, sort of rally around the flag thing. But the second aspect he said was there was also this very real undercurrent of, well, we don't care if the IRGC commander gets got, he was killing young Iranian protesters in the streets as recently as a couple of months ago.

And this supreme leader guy who's trying to basically put the Shah back on top of us, except with Shiite theocratic, you know, antiquated ideas, eh, like would we really be that sat like, yes, we'll have our problems with Israel, but like there's also like some level of, okay, like this is okay. Like, it's not like we love this regime that much and that there aren't internal tensions there.

And for, for Israel, if you could just, like, I'm not saying you're gonna make Iran your best friend, but if you could at least get it from. Hey, you're the great Satan. We're gonna wipe you off the face of the earth to little. Hey, we're not friends. Let's have negotiations. Little Satan. Let's be,

They were great participant in it, but there was clearly a civil war since 2011.

1999 NATO air campaign against Serbia. Hmm. Okay. I can tell you it definitely did not in the moment incite and any anti mil sentiment, even pro-democracy, liberal people in Belgrade were standing on bridges with little targets saying to Nate Obamas right. But basically 12 months later, you know, when you took stock of the situation and said, what was all this for? There was the revolution in October of 2000. Yeah. So my, but, but that's, that's a different situation too.

I mean, like, you know, Serbia took on the entire alliance of nato and NATO can do a lot of damage.

Israel can't, Israel cannot do that level of damage. So my, my question, unless,

So what's the whole point of all this? You know? And I think that that's, that's possible. I just, I, I would rather kind of focus, I. Because it's a more of a longer term team and it's not gonna happen overnight. Mm-hmm. Um, Iran is a more sophisticated political system than like Gaza or Hezbollah. And I, and I just feel a lot of commentary today. It's like if they just put some page of bombs in pagers, you know, like, no, it's, it's gonna be more difficult than that.

Nonetheless, for all their sophistication, size, strength, inherent kind of geopolitical value, like their S3 hundreds are clearly completely useless. Their air defense system, the surface to air LS three hundreds they got from Russia fairly sophisticated, has not ha made a dent. As you pointed out, Israel can pretty much fly in and out, you know, it can be just like a routine flight for their fighter jets, you know, across the region.

Um, and that's a real problem because what do you do at this point? They're kind of like North Korea, Iran is kind of like North Korea, and let me explain what I mean. There's very few ways to retaliate in limited way. Yeah, you, you either, you know, fly some drones to Israel, which Israel just destroys.

Or you go for broke and you shut down the streets, or for most, and then, yes, we should talk about regime change because once the US starts using something that Israel does not have, which is long range strategic bombers, you're cooked, you're completely and utterly cooked, and at that point you are risking regime survival.

You can block off the straits of ramus while done, you know, because civilian shipping, again, can't really evade anti-ship cruise missiles, which Iran has, can't really evade. Even little dinghies, you know, little zodiac boats with like a dude with a, with a shoulder launch surface to air missile, like whatever, like, you know, it's, it's a real problem.

So let me rephrase it back at you because one of my clients this morning asked me, you know, what are American options today after what's happened? And I said, okay, there's basically four they can join in and completely wipe out Iran and lead to regime change. Like that's one, um, they can covertly support it, but not sort of publicly be there. So try and, you know, let, let Israel take as many licks as they want, but not get involved. They can stay out of it. They can be truly isolationist.

And, you know, the, the Rubio statement or. Uh, maybe the donnall is angling for his Nobel Peace Prize. They come in as the great peacemaker. They say, we have made peace between Iran and Israel. We're gonna tariff both of you unless you stop throwing the missiles and the drones at each other. Sit down against the table and figure this out. I'm asking you the question there is, where do you think the United States goes from here?

Do you think the United States wanted this and like, wanted the excuse that Israel's opening for it? Or do you think that the United States was like, okay, we'll use Israeli aggressiveness to get to what we really wanted, which is a deal with this regime?

And so the, the boys confront George W. Bush in the episode and they're like, why are you propagating the rumor that you did this? And George W. Bush says, an incredible statement. And by the way, if you're a conspiracy theorist, you have to watch this to cleanse yourself of that stupidity. And George W. Bush looks at the little boys and says, if people don't think that we did it, they'll think we're incompetent. If they find out that a bunch of dudes in caves.

Destroyed the Twin Towers in New York City. They'll think that we, the US government is incompetent. So yes, we're propagating these rumors. So this is South Park.

Of course Trump is gonna say, and of course the, the media machine in America is gonna say like, oh, we knew ha ha, yeah, we've been in on this planet from day one. That's the whole thing. We're not incompetent. Our ally, Israel didn't just do something behind our back embarrassing us, quite frankly. 'cause we were about to meet with Iranians on Sunday. Yeah. So I, I believe none of these rumors, and I don't care. Like we could have Marco Rubio on this podcast.

You'll be like, no, Marco, you don't know. I'm like, shut up. I do know. Fuck off. Of course. Yeah. Oh yeah. You guys were like in on it. No, you weren't.

Well, and I, and I think Trump, we do

Because Israel, your vassal state keeps bonding me. Like if you cannot control Israel, so this is the problem for the US if they cannot control Israel. How can they make a deal with Iran? And so that's why this is not just a, a, a funny little question, you know, where we're like, Hey, like, hey, what did America know? Oh, watch South Park, you know? No, I mean, it's actually very critical to this whole situation.

Israel is fronting as if they're gonna continue this operation for the next two weeks. That's what Netanyahu said. This is not a one day operation. And the US is supposed to meet in musket in Oman, with Iranian officials. And by the way, the, the, the hilarious part of this is us, is like, we're still coming.

For what reason? You can't control Israel. Why would I continue these negotiations? And this is where, this is where what Israel did is truly pernicious from an American perspective. And I do think so when we think about this from a profound level, like what's profound about this attack, it's the break between Israel and the us. I don't buy for one second. The US was aware of this operation for weeks. Now there's a talk how it lulled Iran to sleep by continuing to negotiation.

Shut up again. Watch South Park episode. This is America just trying to make itself look like they weren't completely unaware of what was gonna happen.

Yeah, I have, I have two lighthearted points and then a more serious one. The first is when you were talking about Israel, like wanting to bring the United States in, it's ironic because that's basically the reverse Al-Qaeda, like that was Al-Qaeda's strategy, like bomb the World Trade Centers, and then you're gonna invite a bigger response and then people are gonna overthrow the regime that you don't like. So funny to see the Israelis taking a pic, uh, page out of Osama's, uh, book.

And then also have, have you, has it struck you that like Israel is the real MAGA actor in the world? Like in the last week they've bombed the shit out of Iran and have arrested Greta Thunberg and embarrassed her and then like, you know, sent her back to Sweden without her lunch money or whatever. Like, I think they're the ones that are really doubling down on this. But the, the deeper point I wanted to say was, and this is the part that makes me nervous about what, what happens next?

Um. Because I, I, I think we're in agreement, I think on most of the things that we talked about, but it seems to me that Iran's back is against the wall. They have no good options. They're screwed. And to your point, they can't, even, the negotiation with the United States is not something they can credibly do. To your point just now about Israel, you can't control, you know, your dog is off the leash. Like, there's this, this Israeli actor that's just gonna keep bombing us.

Why should we make any deal? And it seems to me that if they're truly desperate and if they have any nuclear material to go with, or any kind of last ditch effort, like, can they just really sit, maybe they sit there and take the punishment. Maybe I'm like underestimating that as a potential choice. It, it

Like, I'll be amenable now, now that I've done this and maybe a couple more days of like some targets, I'm amenable to being put back into the box. And that opens up a chance for, uh, Iran to retaliate against Israel. Um, nobody will care about that. By the way. Nobody like us is not gonna care. Like that already happened. We already set the threshold for caring. It's pretty low.

Like Israel is going to be under attack by Iran for the next like, couple weeks and you know, everyone's gonna move on from that. The question is, well,

I'm gonna continue with, uh, you know, securing Israel in my own way. You guys go deal with Iran now. But that requires, of course, restraint from Iran. And so far we've seen it. Uh, the first statement by Iran after this event happened included America. The, the state media also said that US is responsible. Mm-hmm. That's what happened right after the attack.

The statement today by the foreign minister clearly focused on Israel, the drones that have attacked Israeli, uh, territory in retaliation. Of course, it's just the first retaliation, but they could have easily diverted some to us installations. They didn't. Mm-hmm. Or us, you know, naval vessels in the Persian Gulf. Like there's all sorts of things they can do.

To me, to me, the threshold for Iran and what will tell us whether they're open for negotiations or not, is this, this is what you need to watch. If they don't attack naval vessels in the Persian Gulf that are just floating around either American or civilian tankers, that's important. The second is, uh, Saudi energy facilities, which I highly doubt they will, but I'm just putting it out there.

And then, as I said, the air base in Qatar that the US shares with the Qatari military and then the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain in Manama. So that, that to me, if, if they attack those, I think that they're going for broke. You know, if they don't, if this is just about Israel and maybe some symbolic attack against some American facilities in Iraq.

Now, the reason I say that that's not part of the threshold is our listeners should remember that on January 3rd, 2020, the US assassinated general Soleimani mm-hmm. Of the IRGC, Iran retaliated by attacking American facilities in Iraq with cruise missiles. And the US did not retaliate. In fact, Donald Trump tweeted something like I. You know, I respect this. Like I know they had to retaliate.

I now consider this matter over Vice President Harris actually brought that statement up in her debates with Trump to illustrate that he was cavalier about American servicemen injuries. This actually, you know, I

In fact, I went as far as to say that, uh, annual outlook, that it would happen on January 21st, that the day after Trump's inauguration, he would begin conflict with Iran.

In that he should have applied his seven steps to maximum pressure. He should have been a lot harder. He should have actually done what I said and been very aggressive on January 21st. Killed someone right away like he did with General Soleimani. Yeah, just boom, drone off Somebody just to send a message to Iran. Hey man, I'm serious. You can't drag me along the way you deal with Biden, with his negotiations.

And I think that the problem is Donald Trump almost proved why his own negotiating style works and whatever he's been doing for the past six months with Iran doesn't work. You know, like he lost control of these negotiations because he was a little bit too establishment, a little bit too CFR. You know, he, he, he wasn't Donald Trump enough.

Uh, remember just a, a little reminder for everyone listening on January 3rd, 2020 when they killed Soleimani, the US was negotiating with Iran at the time in Oman, they just killed this guy as a, what's up? That's, that's what Donald Trump did. I firmly believe that had he won the 2020 election, there would've been a deal with Iran right away, because Iran was like, oh my God. And I think that they themselves were like, oh, look at this.

This guy wants peace and he wants low oil prices, so he's not gonna bomb us. You know? And I think they, they, they took that narrative, that meme too far. In fact, I had several clients say to me, but Donald Trump wants to low oil prices. And I'm like, look, he does, but he's not myopic. He doesn't need them tomorrow. If oil prices go to 120 bucks for a month, like the world's not gonna end. It's not

There's absolutely no way that any inflationary spike because of conflict in the Middle East, is gonna lead to central banks around the world raising interest rates. Are you nuts? Jay Powell is not gonna like do the bidding of the supreme leader. He's not gonna like raise interest rates to slow down the pace of the economy as some robot, some automaton, like, oh, energy prices rising, must raise interest rates. No, bro, like Iran is attacking global shipping. No, we're not.

Like they're not gonna raise interest rates. Not even considerate. And that's why I would definitely like fading oil. On day one of this is dumb. You should definitely not do that. But fading the market move, you absolutely should do this. There's no way that this is gonna be negative for, uh, stocks. And by the way, it's right now, uh, noon, New York time on Friday the 13th and s and p 500 is down point 44.

But think of it in terms of hard liners like the IRGC and who believe in the revolution and everything else, versus the pragmatists Rouhani, really the most recent one. But you know, who wanna have their cake and eat it too? They want Iran to be part of the global economy. They wanna relax some of the religious restrictions. But okay, you can have the revolution and these two factions sort of squaring off against each other.

And I. One of the strategic reasons to off soleimani, not just that you're sending a message, you're also getting rid of the leader who is on the hardliner side, the one who was gonna be opposing negotiations tooth and nail.

So if you can empower the pragmatist to some extent and then, uh, to your, I'm just like butchering your point about there probably would've been a deal because getting rid of soleimani and throwing the IRGC into chaos, maybe you can make an argument that now you're giving some power. Um, to the pragmatists, uh, going forward.

But just, just to say that like, there's also an internal Iranian issue here, and I think when we're thinking sort of as you said profoundly about what happens next, um, I, I think there's a lot to be said about like Israel getting short-term benefit, but at what long-term cost the, the changing nature of war. Like another example of intelligence and drones and technology enabling things that even 10 years ago might not have been possible.

And then like, what does this mean for the future of Iran long term? Because eventually Iran is going to come in from the cold, and when it does, it will be one of the greatest frontier opportunities ever. I mean, like, it's, it's an incredible country with incredible human capital and resources and all these other sorts of things, and it will not be isolated forever. Um, so I, I'm always sort of waiting from that perspective, but

I would've said, oil prices are 150 right away, and here we are. Not only has Israel been attacked by a massive terrorist attack supported by Iran in some capacity, even to gently on October 7th, not only have we lived through that, but that happened almost two years ago. Since then, Israel and Iran have exchanged cruise missile fire, and now Israel has attacked Iran and might attack it again. And SAP 500 is down 0.4%, which is like a random day.

Oil prices are up more than they've ever been up intraday. I think we hit significant increase in oil prices, so no doubt there, but you know, they're like 6% and the world's not ending. And people are like, yeah, I mean, it is, I guess Iraq is gonna retaliate against Israel, like, you know, whatever. Like it is what it is. This is the world we live in. I mean, a couple of weeks ago, India and Pakistan exchanged fire.

You and I barely got to squeeze them in between the NBA finals and like the, the fiscal bill in the United States. This is very interesting to me and I think it's something for everyone on this call to who's listening. If you're an investor, this is really important for you. But if you're just a regular person, like listening to our podcast, trying to figure out what's going on with the world, this is the world.

It doesn't mean that the world is descending into chaos and there there's gonna be World War III at the end of the rainbow. This can just be our world for the next 50 years. This is what the 19th century looked like, and it's considered the longest period of peace. The long peace, 1812 to 1914, a hundred years of what we consider peace was interspersed with conflicts that just did not blow out of their region. You know, and I think that's what I would end it on. This is interesting.

We had India, Pakistan, we have this, we had Russia, Armenia, sja, Russia, Ukraine. Like things are, things are cooking here. There, there's a lot of pots on our stove of geopolitics, but none of them are really, uh, overflowing. And that is what multipolarity is like. It sucks because it means people will die more so than when somebody's in charge. On the other hand, it doesn't mean that every conflict immediately has to become a regional configuration.

And I don't think a lot of people have really, uh, wrapped their brains around that fact 'cause they just don't know enough. History and human history is about multipolarity. It's not about hegemony or by.

No, and oil, nobody gives a frack every, literally, ah, you like that. Like the United States has oil Nice. And the Chinese are building reactors and Europe's doing hydrogen. Like they're on borrowed time. That's why that's the, is building, you know, Neo in the middle of the desert. 'cause they're on borrowed time. Just to,

If you're an American listening to this, you're paying taxes in parts of China can be safe because it's not US oil supply that the fifth fleet is guarding. It's the rest of the world. And that's maybe the one vestigial part of Unipolarity mm-hmm. Of hegemony that America still performs. I know you gotta go so we can wrap it on this. All I would say is that Chinese and American interests are not that misaligned when it comes to the Middle East.

Uh, and Chinese statement, uh, after this conflict was pretty muted. They didn't really just support Iran. They kind of said, Hey, both sides need to calm down. Um, and I think that that's interesting as well. I think that's a very nuanced point you're saying, Jacob. In other words, this Soviet Union in the US had clearly delineated interests. It's not that clear anymore.

But like said it, Turkey is the quiet one that is like, we should all be watching how they react because that's probably gonna define this more than anything