In this explosive Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dissect Iran’s baffling wartime decisions in 2026 — from missile strikes on closest allies like Qatar (hitting the massive Ras Laffan LNG facility) to attacks on UAE, Saudi Arabia, and others — while seemingly ignoring Israel and the US in many cases.

What happens when a regime’s “mosaic defense” strategy fractures into regional warlords and fiefdoms vying for power? The Collins argue Iran’s centralized control has collapsed, turning IRGC factions into competing hardliners who bomb expensive targets for headlines and internal legitimacy rather than coherent geopolitics.

They cover:

* Israel’s strike on the shared South Pars gas field and Iran’s bizarre retaliation against Qatar

* The emerging Cold War between Saudi Arabia (centralized states) and UAE (maritime empire/proxies)

* Why this chaos benefits US interests long-term (isolating Iran, hurting China/Europe more via Strait of Hormuz issues)

* Assassination plots against Trump, nuclear brinkmanship, and why nation-building isn’t the goal

* Low-casualty US strategy using vintage B-52s to clear old munitions

A wild ride through Middle East power vacuums, proxy wars, and why Iran’s self-sabotage might be the biggest geopolitical gift the US never expected.Based Camp - What was Iran thinking when bombing its neighbors_

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] What this suggests to me is that the people who are at the regional heads of Iran’s mosaic defense strategy have entirely regionalized their control already.

Simone Collins: Oh, wow. Oh, that would be interesting. So it’s, it’s like, it. It’s descending into fiefdoms.

Malcolm Collins: But what’s important is to these individuals who are playing this game, and you can see this in the president’s reaction here, they actually don’t particularly care about America or Israel or Iran’s long-term geopolitical future.

Simone Collins: Sure. Why would they? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They are vying to be the top dog of the warlords. Mm-hmm.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be doing a, a series of updates on what’s happening with Iran right now.

[00:01:00] And this situation is absolutely crazy in how it’s setting up the future geopolitics of the Middle East. Iran has been making decisions which appear completely baffling from an outside perspective, which is what we’re going to start with to try to understand why they’re making the decisions they’re making.

But we’re also seeing the set of a new Cold War throughout the Middle East, between Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Oh,

Simone Collins: what? Wow. I haven’t heard anything about this.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, it is very, and, and when I say a Cold War, I mean there’s, they’re already in active killing conflicts in about four or five theaters. The Saudi Arabia and the Yoi right now actively.

Simone Collins: So are we talking about a, a cold war along the lines of nuclear threat? Kind of Cold war or just cold war of like frenemies being

Malcolm Collins: No, we don’t attack each other directly, but we arm troops on opposite sides of conflicts throughout the region

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: To attempt to [00:02:00] create public governments that serve us.

Simone Collins: Wow.

Malcolm Collins: So like a, to get like between each other, they are, I’d say, almost friendly in the way they are acting, and yet people are dying every day in mass in service of this conflict.

Simone Collins: Okay. Frenemies Cold War. Gotcha.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. A, a very odd Cold War, but a Cold War nonetheless. Mm-hmm. And given the way that it’s allowed, it’s also sort of a safer cold work that’s unlikely to escalate as much, but

Simone Collins: that’s nice.

Malcolm Collins: wanna, I wanna, I wanna start on the weird behavior of Iran. So if people go back to our episode on Venezuela mm-hmm. My take at the time was I did not think attempting regime change in Iran in the same way we did in Venezuela at least, was a good idea, or really conflict directly in Iran was a good idea.

I said I thought it was incredibly risky. I have since taken the position since this war started and, and this is still where I am today. That. Okay. [00:03:00] I would not have taken this risk even knowing what it appears Trump knew when he went into this conflict.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: However, knowing what has happened since the beginning of the conflict, it was very obviously the right move.

Oh. And the large reason that it turned into very obviously the right move has been bizarre behavior by Iran itself since the conflict started that I wouldn’t have predicted, but maybe I should have.

Simone Collins: Really, because it seems so inane, like them attacking. Their neighbors,

Malcolm Collins: not their neighbor, just their neighbors.

So the attack that was for me, just the most baffling. I mean, they’ve attacked almost every neighboring country at this point except Iraq.

Oh no, they did attack Iraq. They’ve attacked pretty much everyone around them. And when I say everyone one of the most devastating attacks that they did recently was on Qatar.

Now, for people who don’t know [00:04:00] Qatar and Iran are like, Qatar is about Iran’s closest ally.

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Fun fact, Israel did find and kill one of these real guys while he was in Qatar in Doha.

[00:05:00]

حار. people of the world.

Malcolm Collins: Al Jazeera is always d of anyone who Iran is funding. That’s just like Al Jazeera’s main thing. For people who don’t know Al Jazeera is Qatari disinformation campaign. Right? Like that’s broadly what it’s known for, but a lot of people treat it seriously as a source of news and stuff like this.

And a lot of like educated liberals I guess are like, I don’t know, they bite the bullet on that because it’s anti-America. anti-Israel

Simone Collins: can confirm. Yeah. They’re like Al Jazeera quality reporting. Well, and to be fair. A lot of, a lot of propaganda news outlets. Do. They’re, they’re only successful as propaganda news outlets.

If they also put out good information, SEO like you, you, you often don’t get good sustainable, like historically speaking, SEO if you don’t provide websites with good content on them like [00:06:00] that is how to sustainably win the game. And this is why you have publications like the Epic Times and Al Jazeera producing good journalism often.

Yeah. ‘cause they won’t able to get people to eat their vegetables if you, they don’t serve actually good food too.

Malcolm Collins: Sometimes the best reporting that you’re going to get is from a bias source when their personal bias isn’t relevant to that story.

Simone Collins: Yes, absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: So you can get great reporting from the Epic Times when it’s not about China.

You can get great reporting from Al Jazeera when it doesn’t have to do with the Middle East.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But if you wanna get an idea of like what I’m talking about when I’m talking about like an attitude flip and Qatar was a real thorn in our side that they were willing to work alongside Iran as much as they were and promote them as much as they were within the region.

Here’s a recent op-ed that was published in, jazeera for an example of, of, of the shift that we’re seeing,

Simone Collins: okay,

Malcolm Collins: the US Israel strategy against Iran is working. Here’s why. Every aspect of Iran’s ability to project regional power is being [00:07:00] successfully degraded. I’m just skipping in a bit here.

But this narrative is wrong, not because the costs are imaginary, but because the critics are measuring the wrong things. They are categorizing the price of the campaign while . Ignoring the strategic ledger. When you look at what actually happened to Iran’s principle instruments of power, its ballistic missiles are null.

It’s nuclear infrastructure, it’s air defenses,, it’s Navy and Proxy Commander architecture. . This picture is not one of us failure. It is one of systematic phased degradation of a threat that previous administrations allowed to grow for four decades. I write this from Doha, where Iranian missiles have triggered alerts for residents to take shelter and Qatar Airways has started operating evacuation flights.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So, so like this is, this is where we are in terms of the feeling in a place like Qatar. All right. So, to understand what happened with Qatar, just, just a bit of context here. And this was also a huge d [00:08:00] move on Israel’s part, but. Turned out beneficial. So I don’t know what to think of it.

So Israel ends up bombing the South Pars gas field.

Now there have been conflicting reports on whether this attack was given the go ahead by the United States. But when there are co...