← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
3/16/26: US Allies Reject Helping Trump, Oil Execs Dire Warning, Missiles Hit Israel
01:14:15
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- [00:00]
Crystal Ball
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
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Crystal Ball
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Crystal Ball
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Crystal Ball
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- [01:43]
Sagar Enjeti
Hey guys, Sager and Crystal here.
- [01:45]
Crystal Ball
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
- [01:52]
Sagar Enjeti
This is the only place where you can honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [01:58]
Crystal Ball
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com Become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:09]
Sagar Enjeti
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com Good morning everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have? Crystal?
- [02:22]
Crystal Ball
Indeed we do. Trump really scrambling, making a ton of comments yesterday evening he's begging other countries to help secure the Strait of Hormuz. He's saying maybe we shouldn't even be in Iran. Perhaps that's something he should have thought of before he launched this illegal war of choice. So a lot to get to there. We're also keeping the eye on the markets as they open this morning. Oil prices obviously have been spiking, hovering right now around $100 a barrel and huge potential economic fallout looming. Israel is reporting reportedly running low on interceptors. Murtaza Hussein is going to join us to break down the dam damage to that country. Trump and his FCC are threatening broadcasters who tell the truth about his war. They are demanding patriotic news coverage. Very dystopian thing there. Tucker Carlson is claiming he's being spied on and may be charged by the Trump administration. And Trump official David Sachs says that he fears Israel may actually use a nuke, which is first time the US Administration has actually acknowledged that Israel is a nuclear power. And obviously the dire warnings he's sounding is pretty remarkable coming from someone who is inside of this administration.
- [03:26]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, that's right. The first US Official ever, I think, to acknowledge Israel's nuclear program. So we do want to thank you, David Sacks, for finally acknowledging it out in the public. Thank you to everybody who's been supporting the show. BreakingPoints.com youm can shine up and become a premium subscriber. If you can't afford it, no worries. Please just go ahead and hit. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Crystal, we never actually thought we would hit 2 million. I mean, theoretically I knew it would come, but I actually did not ever think it would come this quickly. So we're at 1.9 million. So let's get that extra 100k. All right, we can just worry about it. We can sail off into the sunset. So 1.9 million. Get us to 2 million hit. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you're listening to this as a podcast, please share an episode with a friend. We really appreciate it. It helps other people find the show. Also, bear with us, Crystal is home. We have an insane tornado warning here. So who the hell knows what's going to happen here in the DMV area if anything happens tomorrow. There you go. That's the reason why. But yeah, why don't we go ahead and start with the Straits of Hormuz and the crisis. There's.
- [04:25]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, so Trump making all kinds of wild comments, posting on true social, clearly scrambling and increasingly one of the goals of the war is clearly to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which of course was open before we started this war. So really sort of backsliding here. In any case, have some remarkable comments from Trump on Air Force One yesterday evening, where he is not only begging other countries to help us out, threatening them and saying, you know, maybe he'll blow up NATO effectively if they don't join in and helping to solve the problem that he himself created, but also saying, I don't, I'm not sure we should be there in the first place. Which is just like, oh my God, like, what is going on here? Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
- [05:06]
Donald Trump
Some of the countries would be helpful. Remember, it only takes a couple of people to screw up the straight. A couple of terrorists. You don't need their military is to beat it, but all you need is a few people dropping mines here and there. And you know, you allow SUD up. So we need. I would really, I'm demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory because it is their territory. It's the place from which they get their energy and they should come and they should help us protect it. You could make the case that maybe we shouldn't even be there at all because we don't need it. We have a lot of oil. We're the number one producer anywhere in the world, times two, by double, at least double now. I think it's much higher than that. But we do it. It's almost like we do it for habit, but we also do it for some very good allies that we have in the Middle East.
- [06:04]
Crystal Ball
So Zagar, we broke it and now he wants the rest of the world to come in and fix it and say, and maybe we shouldn't even be there at all. Yeah, you think, you think maybe. So maybe we should have rethought of that before you launched this war on behalf of Israel.
- [06:18]
Sagar Enjeti
This is just the clearest evidence that we have that not only was there no plan, but they really just didn't believe that the streets of Hormuz would be closed. And I've seen a lot of talk about this. Of course they knew it was probable or. But the point is they didn't think it was probable. Remember that during the Gulf War, President H.W. bush, on the very first day of the Gulf War, announced a Strategic Petroleum Reserve release that was to calm the markets and to make sure that any sort of disruption would have flow as the war continued. They didn't do it until about 10 days or so. And remember many, much of that oil is still yet to come online. It's gonna take months for actually to dribble out. Japan, many others are actually doing releases outside of the United States. The entire global economy is scrambling and nothing says I had a than having to beg other countries to have to come in and to bolster the US Navy. I also think that what that does highlight is a massive humiliation for the United States at a big, like global strategic level. This is the United States Navy, Blue water Navy. Entire purpose of a navy is to ensure commerce and trade on the high seas. And this is effectively a declaration we are not able to accomplish this mission without multiple other countries. It also is straining US Allies to the point where we're having to pit against each other in a way where the top allies of the United States in a matter of what, 24 hours are all coming out and be like, yeah, I think you're on your own, man. And what this demonstrates is the chaotic nature not only of Trump and his so called, like, management of alliances, but it actually really calls into question the entire point of the global empire. And you know, you really don't wanna use these things until not only can they do it, but then if you're gonna use it, it better damn work. And so for Iran, this tiny country, which they claim not tiny, but you terms of their military force compared to the United States, to be able to have this threat which just so emasculates the global empire, what does that tell you about the emperor and about the empire itself? It's an absolute humiliation on the world stage.
- [08:19]
Crystal Ball
And that's before you even have the Houthis joining in. And I mean, that's what's crazy to me too, is like we had a trial run of all this stuff with the Red Sea and the Houthis. Ultimately, Biden infamously said, well, we're going to continue striking them. Do I think it's going to work? No, but we're going to continue doing it. Trump actually did the same thing for a while, blew a bunch of people up, realized it wasn't going to work, and just sort of quietly walked away. So he should have known because we had a trial run of this. I mean, same thing with the idea of regime change just coming from strategic bombing. We had a trial run of that in Gaza where we in Israel committed a genocide, blew the whole area to smithereens, and guess what? Hamas didn't fall, which is a much weaker and less well, entrenched organization than ultimately the Iranian regime is. But I think what happens here is Trump really convinced himself and probably had, you know, people like Netanyahu and Lindsey Graham and whoever in his ear that this was going to be quick and glorious, that they could take out the Ayatollah they had this opportunity to do it, that the whole thing. He was reportedly, according to sri, to Parsi, telling Gulf Arab allies the whole thing would be over in four days and they would completely capitulate. So even though obviously military planners knew that there was a possibility that the Strait of Hormones would be impacted because the Iranians been threatening this for years and years and years, years, he never thought it would get to that point. And now that we are at that point, the realization has set in that, actually, I mean, I can't. I won't say we can't reopen it ourselves, but it would require a ground invasion, seizing the shoreline.
- [09:50]
Sagar Enjeti
Right.
- [09:50]
Crystal Ball
You would have, you know, the mountainous terrain there makes it very easy for Iranian forces to come in, you know, guerrilla warfare style, kill a bunch of our troops, take down a bunch of our equipment, and then, you know, and then retreat and hide and come back and do the same thing over and over. If we and our allies do start escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz, it makes everybody involved, including these, you know, cargo ships, that these are just civilian, you know, sailors trying to earn a living that have nothing to do with this conflict makes them sitting ducks. So it really is an impossible situation. The only way to solve this is through some sort of a negotiated end to this conflict. And, you know, at this point, Iran is not gonna just back away without getting something in return to ensure that they're not gonna end up in this place again. So here's the move. You know, the Wall Street Journal reporting, this is incredible. The Trump administration, as soon as this week, plans to announce that multiple countries have agreed to form a coalition, might call it a coalition of the willing, that will escort ships through this corridor which runs along the Iranian coast. U.S. officials said, Listen to this last sentence, though they're still discussing whether those operations will begin before or after hostilities end. Kind of a key point there. And to your point, you know, we've got Germany already taken a pass. Next element, they're saying, yeah, we're good here. No, thanks. We have the French similarly saying, no, thanks, we're gonna pass. We have the Canadians saying, we're good here. We had Japan come out and say, no, we're not getting involved. So, I don't know. At this point, there is no country that has raised their hand and said, yes, please allow our ships to also be sitting ducks in this preposterous quagmire disaster that you've created for yourselves and ultimately for the world.
- [11:35]
Sagar Enjeti
Yes, especially the Anglosphere. So, you know, there's NATO countries. But then there's who are the US Allies? It's gonna be Australia, it's gonna be the uk it's gonna be Canada. Well, Canada come out and said no uk. Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister just this morning, no, we will not be joining into a war with Iran and Australia also coming out. I mean these are beyond even our closest allies, the so called part of the Five Eyes and et cetera. But what that tells you is that when even those people are saying no, we're not going to be joining you, it leaves you completely out on a limb and makes it so that you only have two options. Some sort of escalation, a ground troop opt the internal reporting is they believe they want to try and cripple the regime by taking over Kharg island, which is a possibility. Some 90% of Iranian oil is exported via Carg Island. The other of course is a negotiated settlement. But to have a negotiated settlement would be of course a humiliation also on the world stage. Which is why as Professor Robert Pape always says, the natural way that this goes about is escalation. And it's why Trump is already inside of the escalation. Why don't we play a three then of Trump now threatening NATO countries if they don't join in this mission. Let's take a listen.
- [12:45]
Donald Trump
I want to negotiate badly as they should, but I don't think they're ready to do what they have to do. But I think they will be ready at some point. But we're doing very well with respect to that whole situation in Iran. We are talking to other countries about working with us on the policing of the strait and I think we get a good response and we do. That's great. And if we don't, that's great too. But remember like as an example in many cases they're NATO countries, we're always there for NATO. We're helping them with Ukraine as many. It's got an ocean in between us. Does it affect us? But we've helped them and be interesting see what country wouldn't help us with a very small endeavor which is just keeping the straight up. And that by comparison is a small. It's small because Iran has very little firepower left.
- [13:44]
Sagar Enjeti
Very small endeavor, very little firepower. So little firepower in fact that the US Navy needs to beg NATO and all the other world powers to come in and to join us. I have been thinking though, if this war is the downfall of NATO, maybe it'd be all be worth it. But that's like A big, a bigger picture thing. It is just insane and ironic. Also, it demonstrates how unilateral action will always come back to bite you. Because when you get into that escalation and now you don't have other countries who are bought into the message. It's not just our popula. If you think America's population, which is 10 times more brainwashed and more rah rah and jingoistic for pro war propaganda, isn't on board with this war, according to every poll that we have out there, what do you think that the European population is going to be thinking about this is that while our gas prices are already high, I think it's like 370 or something right now per gallon. Go take a look at European and natural gas and petrol prices out on the continent. It's not great. There are also many of the European countries, Crystal, especially in NATO, are furious because the United States is currently issuing sanction waivers to India and to any other country that wants to purchase Russian oil, which is already at sea. So they are massively enriching the Kremlin at this very time. The rest of NATO only really cares about Russia and Ukraine. Okay, well, guess what? This is enriching that country to a huge degree. I mean, we are pumping money into the Russian war machine. Oil is currently trading around 98$97 a barrel, the highest level in years. The Kremlin is doing backflips. They want the price to go to some 140, 160 per barrel, which would be around 5 something dollars a gallon here in the United States. That is the best case scenario for them, which is why they're also giving all this intelligence to the Iranians, which we're gonna spend a lot of time here talking about some of the strikes and some of the pinpoint. Mortaza is gonna break some of that down. There is absolutely no way. That's just Iran on its own. And how can you even be mad at Russia? As Trump even said, he's like, well, it is hard to be upset because it's not like we don't give all this money to Ukraine. The one thing you say about Trump is at least he does occasionally tell the truth.
- [15:50]
Crystal Ball
Truth? Yeah, well, I mean, Trump is right that the Europeans are more screwed out of this than we are because we are a net energy exporter. We have more tools at our disposal. You know, if he wanted to, he could say, okay, we're not exporting any more of our oil. We're keeping it here domestically. That would cause an Entire global shit show. I mean, if you think about it, for the Europeans, they were very reliant on Russian gas. Obviously, they've largely cut that off now you've got. But the other primary source of their energy, which obviously the Middle east now is imperiled at best. So they are kind of screwed. And I did see a report this morning, Scott Besant, Treasury Secretary, saying like, well, actually we're letting Iranian oil tankers, we're letting them, okay, transit the Strait of Hormuz to continue to supply the global oil markets. And that seems to have led to somewhat of a tick down in terms of the oil futures. And I'm talking like a tick down to 96 instead of 98, you know, effectively. But, but Trump and his regime are thinking that they can effectively bully our allies, and the Europeans in particular, into taking on this task after we created this whole entire mess. And they may be right because the Europeans are sort of embarrassingly, you know, embarrassing at this point and weak and they're kind of screwed, etc. But those thus far, they don't seem too willing to wanna join in this one. You've got UN Ambassador Mike Waltz who was saying that not only do we request that our allies get involved here, we demand it. Let's take a listen to that.
- [17:23]
Murtaza Hussain
Is he hoping that those countries are gonna send ships or have they committed to sending ships? And how soon will those naval escorts be ready?
- [17:32]
Sagar Enjeti
Well, I'll leave those, you know, those conversations to him. The conversations are ongoing. I think there's an important point that's getting, you know, kind of missed in the conversation and that 80% of the oil coming out of the Gulf heads to Asia. Only about 7,8% heads to the Western Hemisphere. And to your point, on escorts, look back in the 80s under the tanker wars, then the last time Iran tried to constrain global energy supplies, you had French, United Kingdom, even Soviet Union forces in there escorting their tankers out that were heading to their markets. And I think that's what President Trump is calling upon the world saying, the entire world is affected. Iran can't hold your economies hostage. And we certainly welcome, encourage and even demand their participation.
- [18:24]
Crystal Ball
Welcome, encourage, and even demand. And you know, when you put out some rhetoric like that, to your point, about the weakness, and then after those comments are made, the UK comes out and says, sorry, you're on your own for this one. Again, the level of weakness. And this is really everything for a global empire. You know, a declining global empire like the US Everything is about maintaining the facade. Everything is about saving face. And once that image is punctured and once you're proven to be a paper tiger and once the rest of the world says, you know, we've got our own ideas about things, that is the beginning of the end.
- [19:01]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, I think it's really, I mean, I didn't wanna see it. Unfortunately, it's highly predictable. This is like classic empire behavior. Let's put the German one up there on the screen. For example, here was Chancellor Merce reacting, skeptical about expanding any EU operation in the Straits of Hormuz. What they talked about specifically, Sorry, this was the Foreign Minister, he said he was skeptical about potential widening of the mission in the Straits of Hormuz. We should be clear, I mean, they might make some token sort of announcement that they will help ensure navigation in the Strait of Hormuz after a cessation of hostilities, or Trump might take it as a victory, that they'll say that they'll put their ships, you know, somewhere near the Straits of Hormuz. But at the end of the day, if they're not sailing through, if they're not joining some sort of military action that's happening in the Straits of Hormuz and the way the United States Navy is currently being floated, that is a real screw you. And remember, as Crystal said, I mean, these countries are massively, they have massive more at stake here than just the United States. Yes, in a drastic situation, we could just do an export ban. 90% of Japan's oil comes from the Straits of Hormuz. Comes, or, sorry, comes from the Middle East. 40 something percent of China's oil comes from the Middle East. The Europeans, it's not just an oil problem they have, it's really natural gas because of Qatar. So Qatar's natural gas, their LNG, has been massively important to their ability to try and wean somewhat off of Russian gas since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. But you put all this together and the bottleneck of everything that's currently happening, and you are already seeing, remember, it's not just oil, it's not even just gas. We're also talking about helium, we're talking about fertilizer, we're talking about urea. We talked a little bit about that earlier. I was just looking this morning. China has already released a strategic fertilizer reserve. I didn't even know they had such a thing. Smart behavior, by the way. Real country behavior. Guess which country, major economy doesn't have a strategic fertilizer reserve or any reserve of any kind? United States. Which means Our farmers are gonna be massively, massively at stake of the global market. And also China and the US have an upcoming. Trump and China have an upcoming summit which is supposed to take place at the end of the month. And the President is even saying that he may delay any sort of that summit or demand Chinese participation in some sort of Hormuz clearing operation. If that summit were to continue to go forward. They don't care at all. This is good for them. You know, there's nothing that they would love more than to have the United States embroiled in a weeks or years long war in Iran, which is they get all their interceptor. They're watching those satellites. I saw pictures come out of the pla, the People's Liberation army headquarters, where they're just monitoring the situation with these giant monitors and maps. And they're just sitting there watching these missiles go up, calculating trajectories, looking at what's working, what's not working. Who by the way, controls the global drone supply parts, where do you think it all comes from? Comes from China. All of these electronics, they're just sitting there quietly and preparing. Meanwhile, there's increased military activity in the Taiwan Strait. Just to show you that, you know, they're pushing their proxies as well. Their main proxy is North Korea. North Korea just launched a ballistic missile two days ago over Japan. They're freaking out in East Asia. South Korean press is all over this. President Trump apparently had to hold some therapy session, phone call with the President of South Korea, who is furious obviously about the removal of that batteries. Like the global order itself is very, very shaky already as a result of this war. Shall we get to Kevin Hassett or
- [22:36]
Crystal Ball
do you want to say, yeah, let's go? No, let's go. Well, just one quick thing on that. To your point about sort of like the global order is shaky. And in a lot of ways the global order is being determined as we speak. Depending on how this war shakes out, how long it goes, how damaging to the US how damaging is to the world, how damaging it is to the empire, what the Gulf countries do after this. And in that way, it truly is a world war. You know, world war is not necessarily about like the number of people killed or exactly the number of countries that are involved in hot military action right now. If you look around the world, you have a whole lot of countries in these interrelated hot war conflicts. But in any case, what a world war really is about is about what the world order is going to look like coming out of that. And I think from that definition, we are already in one. Let's go. Go ahead and take a listen to Kevin Hassett here. Very noteworthy. Someone else made this point on Twitter that the administrator, you know, this wasn't Marco Rubio coming out. You didn't have the, you know, the military brass. It was largely like the economic guys who were sent down on the Sunday shows to make the case, which tells you a few things. I mean, it tells you maybe the number one thing that they're concerned about is really the markets. And that is an intentional Iranian plan. This is as much about the Iranians waging economic warfare as it is about the military conflict. They see that dimension as being the most crucial because they need to exact that pain on America to force them to accept their terms and make sure that they don't end up in this situation again. So Kevin Hassett, who's the chief economic advisor for Trump, gets asked about, so hey, if this goes on for months, like, what is this going to mean for the economy? Economy. Let's go and take a listen to how he responds. If this disruption lasts for months, can the US Economy absorb the shock without a recession?
- [24:27]
Murtaza Hussain
First of all, it's not going to last for months. President Trump's team has briefed us that it's going to be four to six weeks beginning two weeks ago, and that we're ahead of schedule. And so second, if it did last for a long time, it wouldn't really do a lot of harm to the U.S. economy. Now, certainly there'd be pocketbook issues that we'd have to address. But the bottom line is that the US Produces so much oil that you can't really get GDP to go negative with an oil shock the way you could in the 70s. So we're in a very strong position, but it's really heightened the strength by the fact that we've got a productivity boom from artificial intelligence, we've got a capital spending boom because of the big beautiful bill, and we've got incomes growing the fastest we've seen since back around 2018. And so all the fundamentals of our
- [25:14]
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economy are really, really strong.
- [25:15]
Murtaza Hussain
If Iran thinks that they're going to get President Trump to back down because they're going to make our economy weak, then they just don't understand economics.
- [25:23]
Crystal Ball
So Sagar, he basically just dodges there like, well, it's not going to last that long. They promised this is not going to last that. Oh, really? So how's it going to end?
- [25:30]
Sagar Enjeti
Because no one can say that it's worth even Grappling with what he said. He said our GDP won't be affected. And he's not wrong. Yes, Exxon is going to do great. Okay, Midlands. My home state of Texas, Houston. It's going to be a fun time, all right, to be a club owner in the city of Houston. It's gonna be super fun to own a Ford dealer out in West Texas or in the Panhandle or in Tech, you know, in Lubbock or any of these places. That doesn't mean that it's gonna be good for the rest of us. Already gas is 370 about a gallon nationally. Let's think about the scenarios where it's like 450, $5 a gallon, let's say even average. That's. I would say one of the worst case scenarios is around around $5 a gallon. Average, that would be probably $6.50, $7 a gallon in California. That is a disaster. I think for normal American pocketbooks, that also translates into demand destruction. That's what our friend Rory has talked about where when gas starts to tick up that high, people are like, all right, I'm just not going anywhere. I'm not driving to my uncle's house or something like that. Don't forget, we got the July 4th holiday in a few months. Are people gonna be driving? So these, these are times usually when people are always traveling who are either driving, not to mention jet fuel, jet fuel prices in Asia. I think in Singapore, jet fuel is going for $200 per barrel right now because there's something about the specific refine. I'm not an expert, but the experts that I have been reading have been warning that this is going to directly translate into air traffic. Also, there's been just the war, the actual disruption. So while we were all sleeping last night, a bunch of flights which were en route to Dubai had to turn around in the middle of the air and actually go back to where they came from because of a huge fire that broke out. Remember, Dubai is one of the busiest airport, maybe the busiest airport in the entire world. They handle tens of thousands of passengers per day, even on a limited schedule. So already they had to cancel flights for a prolonged period. They're warning people, do not come to the airport. They have immense censorship in the uae. So I haven't even seen any real videos that have been coming out as a result. But just think about, you know, the danger to air traffic in one of the more busiest parts of the entire region, Qatar Airways. Many of these play. These are gateways to Asia. So this will have demand destruction at every level from the war and to oil. So I think. Last thing. Sorry, go ahead.
- [27:43]
Crystal Ball
Oh, I was just going to say, I mean that airport is also just like very crucial to the economy of the uae. You know, it's billions of dollars every day in, in revenue that comes through there. And I did see images that purported to be of fuel depot near the airport on fire after, you know, presumably an IR drone strike. So yeah, their economies are still, you know, being messed with in a way that is probably going to be very difficult for them to recover because their brand is being destroyed. The Iranian foreign minister went and did a couple interviews yesterday as well and he said, hey, the straight of hormones, it's open for anyone. We want it to be open for. It's not open for the US and their allies, but you know, for, for other countries, sure. Straight for moves is open. So let's take a listen to that.
- [28:28]
Murtaza Hussain
Well, as a matter of fact, the Strait of Hormuz is open. It is only closed to the tankers
- [28:35]
Sagar Enjeti
and ships belong to the, to our
- [28:38]
Murtaza Hussain
enemies, to those who are attacking us and their allies. Others are free to pass. Of course, many of them prefer not
- [28:48]
Sagar Enjeti
because of their, you know, security concerns.
- [28:50]
Murtaza Hussain
This, this has nothing to do with us. Us and at the same time there
- [28:54]
Sagar Enjeti
are many tankers and ships who are passing through the Strait of Hormuz. And
- [29:00]
Murtaza Hussain
I can say that the strait is not closed, but it is only closed to American, Israeli, you know, ships and tankers and not to others.
- [29:14]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, but we, we do know though that obviously traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is greatly, greatly, greatly diminished because you know, even if you are not US Israel flag, tanker, owned tanker, you're probably not feeling real safe going through there at this point. And the insurance rates have just astronomically skyrocketed. I mean a bunch of insurers are just like, yeah, we're not, we're not insuring actually your voyage through this area.
- [29:41]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [29:44]
Murtaza Hussain
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- [29:51]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [29:53]
Murtaza Hussain
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- [29:56]
Sagar Enjeti
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- [29:59]
Crystal Ball
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- [31:13]
Sagar Enjeti
Now turning just to oil, a lot of discussion around what the price of gas is going to look like, whose fault it is. The Vice President has an idea. It's Joe Biden. Let's take a listen.
- [31:23]
Murtaza Hussain
All this conversation happens where Joe Biden left us in a terrible situation. And the reason why gas prices are where they are today is because of Donald Trump's work to get them lower. Because in the Biden administration, they were crazy high. The gas prices we're seeing today are nothing like what we saw at the peak of the Biden administration because the President has set us up for energy dominance.
- [31:49]
Sagar Enjeti
And one of the lessons we all
- [31:50]
Murtaza Hussain
have to take away, frankly, every time we get involved in anything overseas, whether it's in the Middle east or anywhere else, the thing we got to take away from it is energy dominance and energy independence.
- [32:03]
Sagar Enjeti
Rely on our own people, rely on our own energy. Biden's price hike. Remember Putin's price hike? Let's go with Biden's price hike.
- [32:11]
Crystal Ball
I forgot about that.
- [32:12]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, that's buried in the PTSD files. Let's see how that works out. I think for the administration, they're gonna blame Joe Biden after a war that they literally chose to enter. Should definitely work. But if you wanna know the real disaster scenario, it's this interview with Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright where he was on Television yesterday, and they said, should Americans prepare for $200 per barrel, which would be around $7 a gallon of gas? Here's what he had to say.
- [32:39]
Crystal Ball
The price of a barrel of oil closed above $103 on Friday. And the Iranians are warning of prices hitting 2, $200 a barrel. Mr. Secretary, should Americans be bracing for, should they be worried that this war will actually drive the price of oil above $200 a barrel?
- [33:03]
Sagar Enjeti
So Iran, for 47 years, has called the United States the Great Satan. So because they call us the Great Satan, I don't think we are the Great Satan. In fact, clearly we're not. So I don't listen much to Iranian projections of what's going to happen. So that's a no disruption. Is that a no very important waterway? I would pay no attention to what Iran says, but there is a lot of energy that flows through the Straits of Hormuz. And depending upon the timing and the manner in which this conflict comes to an end, we're going to see some elevated pricing until we get there where it's going to go. We have done many, many actions to mitigate that price rise. Yep. So the Energy secretary is not ruling out $200 a barrel, which as I just said, roughly around like six something, maybe $7 per gallon. I don't even know what they'd be paying in California already. California this Morning is at $5.50 a gallon. So, I mean, if the national average, it's $3.70, it's $5.50 out in California. If the national average is like $6.50, I don't even know what that would mean. That would be completely insane for the entire country. Let's go ahead and put B3 up here on the screen. The current price of oil, this is right when we are filming the show. It's right around $97 a barrel. Things are moving a little bit as of this morning. Just making sure to make it totally up to date. A few drops, maybe 95, but roughly in that range, I think brent remains around $100 per barrel. Some of this is movement on the statements that were made by the Energy Secretary, or, sorry, by the Treasury Secretary, Kristol, as you said, who this morning was saying that they would allow the transit of Iranian oil to continue through the Straits of Hormuz. But it just demonstrates how they are really caught in a complete bind. If they want to choke the enemy off completely with Iran, they could invade Kharg island, they could take over their oil refineries, they could block all Iranian oil shipments. But what would that do? It would dramatically continue to restrict the amount of supply that is happening. And at the same time, the Iranians, while, yes, they had their Carg island facility hit, they then are reaching out and hitting UAA facilities, UAE facilities, for their ways that they try to export oil that's outside of the Straits of Hormuz. So everybody is locked in a place where the US and the global. Or the allies, Coalition of the willing you might even call it, or maybe the non willing, in this case, the coalition of the non willing. Well, they don't want the price of oil to continue to go up. The Iranians do. So they'll take the money that the US Will allow them to have, but at the same time, they want the price to continue to spiral. So we are in very, very opposed interest in both of these, these respects. And it's also demonstrating every time the US Basically allows Iranian oil to go through or is panicking about the price of oil, it actually illustrates that the Iranian strategy of weaponizing oil price is working. And of course it has to work because the global population is not built into this, is not bought into this. While the Iranian population, at least from what we've seen so far, they're not rising up, they're fine with the war. In fact, they probably support. Support it, or at least some of them do in the streets of Tehran and others not AI as the President said, which we'll get to in a little bit. And that's the, that's the problem that we have right now. It's why they're in a better strategic position, even though they have taken such a beating so far.
- [36:12]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, I love how Treasury Secretary Scott Besant frames it is like we're allowing the Iranian takers to go through. It's like they're calling the shots here, buddy. Now, of course we could blow them up if we wanted to, but yeah, that would just harm us and our allies even more. So the, you know, the strategic thinking around the Strait of Hormuz was sort of based on this outdated idea that Iran, if it was going to close it down, would have to close it down for everyone. And that would harm Iran as well. You know, as long as their tankers are going and largely by the way to China, they're still able to earn the revenue that they need to, you know, continue to produce drones and do what they need to do. And things could get much worse. Worse. I mean, they could escalate the, to more attacks on oil infrastructure. They could escalate to more attacks on desalination plants. This is a region that is not self sufficient and self sustaining in any way. I mean, they require those desalination plants. They require mass imports of food. They are not self sustaining in terms of their, you know, agriculture. So there are a lot of vulnerable, vulnerable choke points here. And this is how bad things are, are even the oil executives are like, yo, this is not, this is not going to be a good thing. Put this Wall Street Journal report up on the screen. Oil industry warns Trump administration that fuel crunch will Likely Worsen American oil executives delivered a bleak message to Trump officials in recent days. The energy crisis the Iran war has leashed, unleashed is likely to get worse. In a series of White House meetings Wednesday and recent conversations with Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Harry Doug Burgum, the CEOs of Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips warned that the disruption to energy flows out of the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway would continue to create volatility in global energy markets, according to people familiar with the matter. In response to questions from the officials, they said oil prices could rise past current elevated levels if speculators unexpectedly build bid up prices and that markets could see a supply crunch of refined products. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth and ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance also conveyed their concerns about, about the scale of the disruption. Because here's the thing, while yes, it's great for the prices go up, blah blah blah, then they get worried about, well wait a second, what if people start buying EVs, what if people start changing their habits and it lessens the global demand for fossil fuel products, like permanently, then that creates a problem for them. So that's why they get uncomfortable even when the price of oil goes too high because then you can get these permanent shifts in consumer behavior. And as a side note, outside of the US where we're effectively banned from being able to buy Chinese EVs which are superior in every way to the domestic EVs that are produced here, which I think we can both attest to being happy EV owners, but the rest of the world, they're going to buy Chinese EVs. This idea that, oh this is brilliant 4D chess and what this Iran war is really aiming at is hobbling China or perhaps hobbling China and Russia. Nothing could be further from the trouble truth, because these countries first of all are have been thinking more long term and strategically, China in particular for Russia. Obviously we talked about how the waivers are now being granted for Russia to sell their oil to India and other places at an elevated premium price. Not to mention, guess what, we're not going to be able to send much of to Ukraine much of anything because our munitions and our intercept, all that stuff is being shipped over to the Middle east and our stockpiles are running low. So we're not going to have much to be able to contribute to the Ukraine war. And China, of course they love to see us just, you know, bogged down and they're able to see all of our weak points and where the vulnerabilities are and they can provide their intel or whatever resources they're providing to Iran and just sit back and watch this all play out.
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- [41:49]
Sagar Enjeti
This is why the 5D chess narrative around China is preposterous. They are doing very well, already outside of this crisis, they get to learn. And first they got to study all of our financial sanctions against Russia, which, of course, they were a huge beneficiary of. Now they get to study militarily how the United States is even capable in the year 2027. Look at all the interceptors, look at the radars, look at the drone tech, see exactly where it's all vulnerable, how exactly they would want to pilot it. And of course, they have, what, 250, 300 times the production base and military capacity of the country of Iran. And so they're just sitting there biding their time this entire time. Now, let's go to B5, please, and put this up here on the screen. This was a recent interview that Trump gave to NBC News. He says that the US May hit Iran's Kharg island again just for fun. Trump told the NBC News broadcaster on Saturday US Strikes totally demolished much of the oil export hub. Not true. And warned of more attacks on the island. What they did demolish were Iranian military sites on Carg Island. He says we may hit it a few more times just for fun. The remarks would American escalation for Trump, who previously said they are targeting only military sites on Carg island, as they have now. The way that I had this explained to me, I was on the phone with somebody recently who has a little bit of an idea about what's going on. And this falls exactly into Robert Pape's entire escalation trap theory. What they need to do is to change the status quo, right? The status quo was bad. So how do you change the status quo? You only have two options. One is to have a negotiated solution. The other is to come up with all sorts of cockamamie schemes about how maybe this one, the big one, will change the calculus of the enemy. So that's why they hit the military sites on Carg Island. They were like, hey, we're gonna hit this so that we can come in and we can get it if we want to. They say, okay, well, if you do, come and get it, we're gonna turn it into a death trap for all of the people who are there. So, yeah, we're gonna pay. Our economy will seriously pay, but you're gonna pay, too. Now, which one of us do you think is gonna hold out longer? Because they're already gonna be transforming their entire nation into a total war economy. One where everything bunker down, things, get national seize. You know, the concept of even, like money becomes basically, you know, irrelevant in this total war scenario. They're just gonna go and seize whatever they want. Obviously they would still just have to outlast the United States. But the problem is this magical thinking scenario is that the military is currently selling to Donald Trump. That's where the Carg island stuff comes from. They're like, oh, well, we hit all their missile sites, but now we have to go and hit this particular one. And then what's next? Oh well, we need to go in, we need to seize the island. Cuz if we seize the island, it'll cut them off, but of course they'll be able to respond to us. It's the same thing with the nuclear sites. The nuclear sites I actually think are the real problem in this entire war. Because the easiest way for Trump to say to declare victory would just be to have some crazy raid that goes in and seizes it and he can just pull out and say, okay, we're done, we've neutralized them forever. The issue is, is that because we bombed those nuclear sites and it's under several hundred feet of rubble and it's in a tunnel is to go and get. They know exactly where you're coming. You can't just send a small team in the dead of night because they know you're going to be there and they're going to arm the entire area. So then you have to send in a bunch of people to secure the area. It might even take weeks or months to excavate the rubble, which means an occupation. Of course they're going to be sitting ducks for anybody who wants to attack them, which means you got to have a big perimeter. And so there's all these magical thinking scenarios. Each one of them means that each one of them is about changing the status quo. But we've already shown our hand, right? We bombed, we killed the Ayatollah, we bombed all these missile sites. They still are able to launch drones. And so the final option is just continue to keep doing what we're doing. But that's a nightmare for all of us at $100 a barrel for oil and high gas prices and an economic contraction, maybe even a global depression, and of course the destruction of U.S. credibility. So we only have bad options that are in front of us right now. And Trump, his information environment. I mean, we'll talk about this later. He's like praising Mark Levin. It's not good, right? And all he wants to hear are all these magical thinking scenarios where this time we can do it, right? Just if we bomb this, it'll change things on the ground. That's exactly what happened in Vietnam. That's the problem.
- [45:59]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, well, the Carc island thing, you know, Trita said something really interesting to me when I talked to him on Saturday. Great interview. You guys should all go and check that out, if you haven't already. He was like, what the Iranians are going to take note of is that Trump did not not bomb the oil infrastructure on Kharg Island. He made a lot of noise and a lot of bluster about how hard he was going to hit the island. And then he just targets the military installations. They will read weakness into that because it shows that he is unwilling to damage the oil infrastructure. That's going to cause more economic problems for him. And that is the area of the war that they are laser focused on how do we cause economic problems? So it showed to them, them that the strategy was effectively working, that Trump was unwilling to go that far and damage those oil facilities because of what the reverberations would be. He is afraid of that market turmoil again. That's why all of the economic advisors were sent out to the Sunday shows. That's why Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen is out trying to say whatever he's saying this morning. That's why they announced their coalition of the unwilling to open the Strait of the Hormuz at some point, potentially, theoretically in the future. Because. Because he hates to see the market chaos. And he knows that it will be devastating to his presidency, especially given the fact that the American people are by and large not on board with this conflict. We're not bought into it already. We can put the gas prices up on the screen. They've gone up significantly now. The national average is actually, I'm looking at it live this morning. It's $3.72. So it's ticked up even a little bit from when we made this graphic yesterday evening. There is no, no state in the country where gas remains under $2. I can tell you. You know, two weeks ago when I went to my local gas station, it was under $2 in the state of Virginia. And Virginia is kind of like the midpoint of where all of these, you know, all of these states are and what they're experiencing. You look out on the west coast, those red states, red in terms of the color on this picture, not in terms of their political leanings. California, $5.53. Oregon, $4 and 49 cents. You know, all of these are basically over $4 with the exception of New Mexico and Colorado. So already, you know, there's a real toll being taken at the gas Pump that, you know, filters through all kinds of economic choices that people make, and that is felt immediately by the American people.
- [48:25]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, 550 a gallon is so crazy. I mean, it's always so high in California. I don't know what you people are doing out there. I know the weather's nice, but at a certain point. Point, I just don't get it. Unless you're filthy rich, which I know most of them aren't. I've seen the average income statements whenever it comes to California, on top of all the tax. Wow. Anyway, let's go to B7. Let's put this one up here on the screen. You flagged this one. The Houthis are now threatening to actually enter the war. They say regarding the decision to stand alongside Iran, this decision has been made. We are monitoring the situation with our finger on the trigger. Therefore, Yemen's protection participation is a matter of time. I think what this demonstrates, because, remember, what they would be able to try and shut down is the Red Sea. And if you take a look at a map right now with this closure of the Straits of Hormuz, there's the Saudi Arabian pipeline, the east west pipeline, which is trying to export about 70% of their current oil capacity from the pipeline around the Straits of Hormuz. Now, the issue, though, is that if the Houthis were to enter, I think that would be like a dead man switch on the entire region. You close the Straits of Hormones and you close the Red Sea. What that means in both the scenarios is that you actually shut down oil export completely in the region. I think, and maybe others can agree, is that this is something being held in reserve for future escalation, even though it does feel like it's been forever. It's only the third week of the war. Right. And they have to last potentially for a long time in this confrontation with the US and with Israel. And I actually think if you look at the current Iranian strategy, what they want is to widen the war, to spread both of these nations thin and to punish them as much as they can. So with Israel, we're gonna talk about that here in a second. Already they're invading Lebanon. They have called up several hundred thousand reservists, or at least they're ready to go if they need to. They might have to do a literal ground invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon. With Hezbollah, they could get into some sort of ground war there. We know that they're running low on intercept, so they're trying to believe them through Hezbollah. At the same time, with the United States, they have the current economic conflict that's happening. They're just, you know, shooting all these places in the Gulf. But what they could do is if things ratchet up, let's say with an occupation of Carg island, we cut off total Iranian output. They'll go, okay, we're going to cut off all oil export in the entire region and just ramp up all strikes on critical oil infrastructure. So that's where I would kind of see the Houthis as of right now. And then finally, we wanted to put this video, B8, please, just to show everybody this happened a couple of days ago, but actually just happened again this morning, is these Fujairah oil terminals in the uae, which is a huge export hub, were actually struck by Iranian drones now multiple times in addition to Dubai International Airport. This is just in the last 48, 72 hours. So to show you that after those strikes on Cars island, this is immediately what the Iranians decided to do. And they remain able to escalate in that way because of their drone technology. And I think, you know, just when you put it all together, you are watching the Gulf economies truly on the brink. B10, if we can just to show all of you, Bloomberg News writing this up, that the Gulf economies are currently at risk of the worst slump since the 1990s on the Iran war. There has been a massive contraction action, let's say, in Dubai real estate. Let's put B11 up there on the screen. This is currently like a third of its value in just nine days. If you look at the publicly traded real estate companies of the developers and the landlords in the area. So the entire, like, architecture of Dubai, which is basically banking for the global super elite. No matter who you are, we welcome you into Dubai. All these influencers and all these other people, it really is going to challenge their standing. And while that's really painful for them, remember they have billions, hundreds of billions of dollars invested in our companies too. And if they're upset, they can pull a lot of that investment and they can go looking elsewhere because they have no morals and no scruples. They'll go to anybody who is going to protect them and, or, you know, backstop their economy. So it's a. It's already, like you said, it's a world war. We are in a world war. It doesn't have to look like the old world war. That's one of the common fallacies that people always think is that they're like, the new war is going to look exactly like the old one. And then within about a month, people are like, oh, this one's actually totally different. And here we are.
- [52:43]
Crystal Ball
Yeah. Yep. Epstein, class fleeing Dubai is the TLDR there. And last, last note that I'll put out here. I'm just seeing this online. Axio is reporting that Trump is considering putting boots on the ground to seize Iran's Kharg Island. Appears to be contingent on if tankers remain bottled up in the Persian Gulf Gulf. And you know, that would be no small task because again, you're on this island. Sure. Could you take it? Can you bomb the hell out of it? Can you, you know, land your marines there, whatever you're going to do? I'm sure you can. Then you're on this island very close to Iran where, you know, you, they're going to be in position to cause some problems for you and create a lot more casualties than we've already had. And so that's, you know, it's, that would be boots on the ground would be a dramatic escalation. And I think it's something frankly, the Iranians are with waiting for. I mean, that's what they've said publicly. And I don't think it's just a bluff because they know that they have a lot of strategic advantages if you actually have boots on the ground in the country. And the, the other thing I'll say about it is, you know, Carg island, obviously very important. As you said, 90% of their oil exports flow through Carg Island. They do have other options. There are other contingencies. So it's not like they would be totally, completely screwed and torch in terms of oil exports, if we were to seize Kharg Island. I believe it was attacked in the Iran Iraq war and they were able to, you know, to go in other directions. And so they do have some backup facilities and mechanisms. But, you know, we'll have to keep an eye on that thing is just continues going up the escalation chain, as you said, just like Robert Pape predicts.
- [54:18]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, we have about 2,500 Marines that are on their way to the Persian Gulf. They were diverted from an exercise in the Indo Pacific Marine Expeditionary Force. There are already about 50,000 Marines that are in the region. So it is a big question, why do you need this Marine Expeditionary Force? I did speak with an expert. He said that they may be able to bolster, let's say, some of the security if there is some sort of deployment. But I mean, anytime you're calling in more troops, it's not good. It's usually not good. All right, let's get to Murtaza Husseini. Standing by.
- [54:53]
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- [56:55]
Sagar Enjeti
joining us now is Murtaza Hussain of Dropside News. Great friend of the show. It's good to see you man. Thanks for joining us.
- [57:01]
Murtaza Hussain
Thanks for having me.
- [57:01]
Sagar Enjeti
All right, so let's break down some of the military Interceptor problem that we're already beginning to see in Israel. First, we're going to start with C1. We have a video here from NBC News. Been verified, but we're all going to watch. I mean, this is the problem in a nutshell. You are watching two Israeli interceptors try to shoot down this incoming Iranian missile. They both miss and you watch as it strikes deep in the heart of Tel Aviv in the middle of a city. This comes on the heel, Maaz, of this new report from my friend Shelby Talcott over at Semaphore. Let's put that one up there on the news. Israel is running critically low on interceptors, reportedly entered the current war already low and have now informed the United States that they need to be topped up. Obviously, we have ourselves a very finite supply. So what do you make of the ongoing munitions and interceptor problem after only 2 so weeks of war?
- [57:58]
Murtaza Hussain
Well, you know, the crazy thing is that before the war started, this was seen as maybe the preeminent reason not to have the war. But there were many other reasons. We're seeing now with the straight or moves and so forth, very dire reasons, reasons, but arguably the number one reason was the lack of interceptors. These interceptors are extremely expensive. They're very time consuming to produce. I believe in previous years, the US Sometimes only produce a dozen a year or something like that. They're very, very finite, both for the US And US Allies. And as you showed in that video, oftentimes you have to fire several interceptors to try to defeat a single Iranian missile. And maybe it won't even be successful. So the math kind of favors the Iranian here, really. The US Is really goal would have to be to suppress Iranian fire before the interceptors run out. There's no indication that Iranian missiles run out right now. They're firing at a slower pace. But they've also said that they're planning for a war which could go on for months or even years potentially. So it could be the tempo of their operations. We don't really know. A lot of this stuff is classified. But we do know now that the interceptor fears that we're raising before the war are now being leaked out. And if we're in a situation where the Iranians are still firing and the interceptors are out, that's very disastrous for the Israeli side in this case. And I will add one last thing. These interceptors are intended to defend the whole world, so they're intended to defend the US Positions in Asia. They're needed in Ukraine as well, too. So if you're draining down the global supply in one theater, there's going to be tremendous knock on effects. And you could actually incentivize escalation in Asia because you're making it easy for the Chinese, North Koreans, because they don't have the same defense munitions to face that they are, which are being used now in Iran.
- [59:35]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, and what about, I feel like we're being gaslit about the amount of Iranian capacity that has been taken out by the Israelis and the Americans. You know, the sort of race is between the US and Israel trying to destroy not just the missiles, but the missile launchers and you know, their stockpiles of interceptors running out as Iran continues to be able to fight, fire missiles and then also use drones to menace the region. So what do we know about how much the Iranian capacity to fire missiles has been degraded and what their stockpile of these shahed drones is as well?
- [60:08]
Murtaza Hussain
Well, you know, almost from the beginning of the war, the US and Israel said that they've eliminated Iran's ability more or less to fire missiles, using figures like 60%, 70%, 90% in terms of destruction of launchers and so forth. There's been some contravening evidence about that that it's hard to say exactly. What we can say for sure is that the Iranians are still firing more than two weeks into the war, which is something I don't think people expected. Secondly, pre war they had very significant capacity for manufacturing missiles. But also these shahed drones, you mentioned the drones, some estimates say they can cost less than $10,000 each. Iran entered serial production of the drones many years ago, so they were mass producing them for a very long period. And it's a sort of invariable that surprisingly the US and Israel didn't account for before, which is that these cheap drones give Iran precision strike capacity far beyond at a greater scale than people would have understood before. I think it would be very hard to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, for instance, before, without these drones, you need to have actual ships go out there, you need to mine it, you need maybe artillery launchers at the shore and so forth. But now these drones are very accurate. You can fly them into ships. And some estimates say they might have tens of thousands. It could be fighting them for many, many years even. And they're still producing them now, even perhaps in facilities embedded in the mountains and underground, all bore mountains. So I think that the whole mythos that Iran had no production capacity, had no ability to resist was sort of given to Trump, probably with the Israelis more to make it seem like it's a cakewalk to get him in a situation which he's now mired.
- [61:41]
Sagar Enjeti
One of the things, Maaz, that we've been looking at in particular are some of these new cluster munitions. Let's put C4 up there on the screen just to give everybody an example. This is from cnn, but there are multiple other reports out here how the use of cluster munitions is actually challenging Israeli air defense. There is actually say an unnerving spectacle that has become a feature of the war in Israel. Outfitting some of the ballistic missiles with cluster munitions that pierce through Israel's sophisticated air defense systems. They carry up to 11 pounds of explosives, they cluster and explode over so that way they can't be intercepted and then they can hit over, over a multiple mile radius. So the fact that they are still able to launch ballistic missiles and even drones I think does fundamentally challenge the US narrative. The US narrative is what is it, 95% of production and then they'll say that launches are down. What I've noticed though is that our strikes are also down. So in terms of the number of initial strikes that happened in the first couple days of the war, our strikes seem to be also significantly down. So called precision strikes, not counting the Israelis of course, who are just bombing whatever they desire. But what we continue to see is that after a couple of weeks they're still able to launch missiles, they're still able to hit drone, not launch drones, they're able to launch and hit critical infrastructure. And even if we do hit all the production facilities that we know about, there could be many others that we don't know about. So this seems to spell a country able to resist for the medium to long term. Or do you see a change differently?
- [63:10]
Murtaza Hussain
No, I totally agree with you. And you know, one thing that's very important in the war, as much devastation has happened in Iran so far, it's mostly been in the western and central parts of the country. There's a huge eastern part of the country which is kind of out of the range of these airstrikes and has not really been affected. It wasn't affected in the last war either, just because it's much more difficult to strike. So you know, they have, they've been preparing for this conflict for literally generations. They've dispersed production facilities around the country, underground and so forth. So it's very, very difficult to completely destroy it. Although they are doing tremendous damage to Iran's industrial base. I think that if you look at the Iranian statements and take them for what they Will, but they claim that they haven't even fired the missiles they've produced in the last decade. They say they're firing the older missiles and they're saving the more advanced ones for later in the conflict when they expect that the Israeli defenses will be down further. These attacks that have been taking place on the missile defenses in Israel, for instance, they're all basically down payments on future attacks attacks because if you can use your less advanced missiles up front, you drain down the defense batteries on those and then you can use the more advanced ones later on for much more devastating attacks. And that's the themes of what they're doing here specifically. And to your other point, the way that these air campaigns operate is that they're more intense at the beginning. You have all your assets in there. The shock and aw happens up front. And the US strategy was that in the shock and nausea should collapse the Iranian government. They shouldn't be in the position to continue firing firing because as you said, the pace and intensity of US operations decreases over time for logistical reasons and even Israeli operations will decrease over time. So I think that now that we have a situation where US ability to course by the air is actually decreasing because the sortie rate is decreasing, logistics are becoming a factor. Meanwhile, the Iranian fire rate is staying relatively stable now, and that's not an advantageous position. The Iranians designed this war to be a marathon, whereas the Israeli US preferences of Sprint. And now it seems like we're entering the marathon.
- [65:04]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, very interesting. What do we know about the actual damage inside of Israel and the GCC member states? These are all authoritarian countries. We've been talking here about the level of censorship, the threats against anyone posting any of the images of destruction. You also have these private satellite companies that have decided to do the bidding of the US and Israel and take down their satellite images so that they are no longer accessible. So we can't see the extent of the damage to here.
- [65:31]
Murtaza Hussain
Well, you know, it was very notable up to about March 7, we were seeing satellite images of very serious destruction at US Military bases in the region. Advanced radars, including for the Thaad radar system, one of which is being moved from South Korea now to replenish it in the Middle East. So the Iranians had pretty accurate precision strike capacities against U.S. military assets throughout the Gulf and also targets in the Gulf. And we've seen now reports of people being arrested in very large numbers in the UAE and elsewhere for taking photos. I the aftermath of these strikes. Israel has similar censorship in place. I'm not sure. The level of extent of total damage per se at the moment, because I don't think the Iranians are actually trying to inflict physical damage or even kill people specifically. That would be a byproduct of the operations. But the one thing they aiming to do is to increase economic pain globally. Say that if you're taking us down, we'll take everyone down with you, specifically in the Gulf states. And also to unnerve the Israelis and keep them in a position of long term war that can also manifest in greater destruction down the road if the interceptors run out. So right now the Iranian position is not actually to create mass havoc. They're trying more to keep the temperature at a level that they can maintain and that they prefer. So I think the question now is what would the response be? And like I said in Sagar, you said as well too, these strike rates are going down. So can the US escalate? Will the US have to to invade parts of Iran or launch a ground operation? It's actually headed in that direction either as capitulation or escalation. And neither is a very enviable prospect. And I will say one thing. This morning I was actually looking at Iranian news. There was an airstrike against a very strange target. It was the civilian headquarters for an electricity company and many several engineers and employees were killed at the company. I don't think they were expecting to be struck. It wasn't the military. So I think what the Israeli US strategy now, and this is probably the Israeli strike, to be honest, is more to if you can't coerce them militarily, see if you can inflict so much civilian pain to the infrastructure and so forth that they just capitulate for that reason. But I think that that also will not be the case. I don't think they capitulate now after everything that's happened at this point.
- [67:43]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh, of course. I mean even trying to do that with ground troops is itself a nightmare. Yeah, let's just kill all the electricians. It'll surely work out just like it did in our Iraq. Right. You know, take out the civil servants, make sure that you collapse the country into civil war and of course nothing will blow back on all of us. We did. I wanted to get your reaction. Could we put C5 up here on the screen? The Iranians are warning. The Iranian Secretary of the Supreme National Council is warning that remaining members of Epstein's network have devised a conspiracy for false flag attacks similar to 911 that will be blamed on Iran. Let's put all of his, you know, propaganda and rhetoric and all that aside, even though some of it might even be true, what should we make then of this warning? Obviously, the Trump allies are gonna say, well, that means he's planning something. And then, of course, others, many of us, who are very skeptical about any potential major terrorist attack here on US Soil or some sort of precipitating event which would. A Gulf of Tonkin, let's say, something like that, for example, which would require some sort of escalation. It is clear. Are they trying to. What do you make of their statement then, of why they're putting it out?
- [68:49]
Murtaza Hussain
Well, I think there's a number of things. First of all, the invocation of Epstein is quite common in Iranian communications about the war, partly because they want to highlight the corruption of the ruling class of the US This Epstein situation going on literally right before the war. So that's something that's become a common part of their public communication. Secondly, I do think they're trying to emphasize that they don't have a conflict with the American public. This is kind of a very consistent messaging in Iranian politics. Even during Ali Khameneen, you have these notorious denunciations of the US but you could often differentiate that from the American people and say it's a conflict with the American ruling class. So this is kind of consistent with that. And finally, I do think that there is a possibility that the US Government or the Israeli government especially, could engineer a circumstance that creates a casus belly for escalation or tries to create. Create a greater public support for escalation. Because right now this war is very unpopular with the US it's actually the most unpopular war, perhaps started by polls at its outset we've ever seen, at least in our lifetimes, certainly. And as time goes on, wars don't become more popular, they become less popular, especially when casualties start mounting. And we're going to see very soon when inflation starts going crazy in the United States because of oil prices and food prices and the many, many things that are going to be affected by the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. People are going to be very affected. Said what can get them back on board is some sort of incident that causes alarm or fear and results in people's rallying to the war itself. That could be an attack, like the woes alluded to that statement. But I also think that this push to seize Kharg island in Iran by Lindsey Graham and others, that is something which is almost certainly going to generate US Casualties. It could generate catastrophic US Casualties if you look at the actual, actual geography of the island and what that mission could entail. So I think it's actually a trap to try to get more Americans killed in some way in order to make the war popular, which is not popular when started.
- [70:47]
Crystal Ball
Yeah.
- [70:48]
Sagar Enjeti
Wow.
- [70:49]
Crystal Ball
Can we put C6 up on the screen? As you know, I'm sure Maz, there are all kinds of rumors online that Netanyahu has been killed by the Iranians. He waited a few days and then he put out this video of him in a coffee shop. Now the sleuths are saying this one may be AI too. In an attempt to turn this into an intelligent question, I was taking a look at some of the new polling that has come out about Americans views of Israel. And I mean, compared to where the country has been historically, the negativity that Americans feel towards this country is truly shocking. And I think is evidenced by the amount of excitement over the idea that Netanyahu may have been killed. Here you've got overall only 32% of Americans, according to this NBC News poll, who have a positive view of Israel. 39% have a negative view. If you look at the independent and the Democratic numbers in particular, I mean, it is stunning. Only 13% of Democrats have a positive view of Israel. I think most of them are in D.C. or like Josh Shapiro, planning on running for president. So how much of Israel's calculation is the fact that they know the political landscape in the US Is changing incredibly rapidly. They know that this current president, who they can, you know, apparently get whatever they want from and who, you know, they funded his campaign overwhelmingly, that he is, his party is very unpopular. He's very unpopular. Democrats are very likely to retake the White House. And then they have a very different situation potentially on their hands with regard to support, support from the American superpower. So how much of that logic plays into their sense, like it's now or never, we gotta do this thing, we gotta do it all the way, come what may.
- [72:38]
Murtaza Hussain
Well, you know, it's funny too, when you look at those stats, they're very stark, as you pointed out. I think they're even more stark when you segment them after age too, because even on the Republican side, it's more the Mark Levin generation, which is a very gung ho. But Israel, even younger conservatives are much more divided, at least about the subject. So I do think that in a sense, in public support, the clock is ticking. But despite that, it's kind of insidious. I think that they're still trying to hold on to American support, even if there's very low popular support for Israel. Because if you look at the moves that the Israeli government's making with this administration, they're trying to embed many more years of cooperation and US Support, security wise and others for a very, very long time for Israel. Israel making these memorandums of understanding for maybe 10, 15 years to continue not funding Israel, quote, unquote, but basically doing defense cooperation, which winds up being the same thing. And likewise, they're maintaining ties with the American elites. So they would like to have a situation where they have a very good relationship with American elites. They can sort of change the legal landscape even in the United States, to insulate themselves from criticism as much as possible from the public, sort of exploit the corruption of the American political system to keep getting what they want. And I think that they actually, actually aren't committed to giving this up. Maybe they'll have to tone it down a little bit or be a little bit more behind the scenes, but I think they would like to maintain a relationship with American elites that survives American public hostility and that we have precedence for that. The US Cooperates very closely with Saudi Arabia for a very long time. Saudi Arabia is not very popular in the United States, but they still get quite a bit out of American elites. And I think the Israelis like to move towards that. But to your point, Crystal, I do think, think that Netanyahu right now is trying to do a bank run on the United States, get as much out of it as he can at the moment, because he mentioned he does have a very pliant US President, but also he's thinking of his own end of his life and his legacy. He wants to be known as the guy who destroyed Iran, who destroyed Gaza, did all these different things, and he knows that he has a great opportunity to do that right now. So I think that it's a confluence of the trends you pointed out, but also Netanyahu's own political calculations.
- [74:46]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, literally, while you and I are talking, just came across hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians being told they will not return to their homes. Israel completely invading southern Lebanon in a different world. That's a huge headline. What isn't this the first invasion since 2006, which at the time was a huge war. Everybody covered it. Now, I mean, effectively being told you can never come back until, quote, the safety of Israelis living near the border has ensured. Who wants to guess that it'll never be ensured the safety of Israelis and that we just saw another expansion of the Israeli state with its port borders Absolutely.
- [75:20]
Murtaza Hussain
There's many precedents for the past. And according to the Israeli state ideology, the more hardcore versions of it, Southern Lebanon is part of Israel. They have a territorially irredentist view towards us, regardless of any security concern. They wanted for other reasons. So I think this is just one of seven wars Israelis are fighting at the moment. And it's very uncommon in history for a country to be like that. The level of death that's happened in Lebanon and basically not reported so much because of all the other wars, maybe 800 people have been killed in just four or five days, rapidly expanding every single day. The displacement you mentioned, this is really a situation I don't think we've seen since Imperial Japan, a country which is so brutal and so multi directionally violent that it's almost become part of the national character. And there's also a lot of violence happening in the west bank as well too, at the moment, very escalated violence, ethnic cleansing. So that's not very popular. Most people in the world, and people are just recoiling that even countries in Europe, which officially support Israel very strongly. Germany, if you look at public opinion, it's soured quite a bit and very rapidly. So one wonders if a country can survive a situation where its unpopularity is growing so much more. I do think that they're planning for that, but there's no end game, really. It seems like they would have wars that are going to be going on for many, many years. And I do think at some point there are questions of how that can be sustained absent, you know, ongoing high levels of political support abroad.
- [76:49]
Sagar Enjeti
Well, thank you so much for. Go ahead, Chris.
- [76:51]
Crystal Ball
One last worry. Let's put C7 up on the screen. I mean, this footage is just unbelievable of a drone that has pierced a US base. And you can see it, you know, just flying around at will, going wherever it wants to go. And ultimately we can continue keeping this up on the screen. Ultimately, it hones in on a target and goes in here and causes, causes some level of damage. And we know that US bases around the region have been damaged. I mean, there is a good chance that this effectively ends the US as the global superpower, as the invincible hegemon of the world. How does Israel view that possibility? Is that a problem for them because US is such a benefactor for them? Is that a plus for them because we are one of their rivals for influence throughout the region? Region? How do you think that they view that possibility?
- [77:45]
Murtaza Hussain
You know, I'll say two things, and I want to comment very quickly in that video. Too. I was very frightened when I saw that video because that video reminded me of many, many videos I've seen like this from the Ukraine, Russia war. That's a fiber optic drone. So it's a drone that's very difficult to jam and so forth. And, you know, we've seen so many videos of Russian soldiers running for their lives and being killed by these drones, the last moments of their life. And now these drones are disseminating around the world. The world and the US is in this war now in Iraq and Iran, all these places because of the attack on Iran, that I don't want to see images of American soldiers running from these drones. It's horrifying. Those videos are very devastating. So I think that what I showed in that video is a very, very chilling sort of escalation of the conflict in terms of the way the technology is diffusing. But secondly, to your point, Crystal, what's happening right now is completely inapt to conventional views of maintaining American interests abroad. There's a theory in foreign relations that the ideal view for America abroad is to engage in a strategy of offshore balancing. And offshore balancing means that you don't let any other country become the hegemon in its region. You keep a balance between them, because if they're a hegemon, then they could start undermining our interests. What we're doing in Israel is something totally different from that. We're creating an Israeli head hegemon. We are destroying all their enemies over years. And if you look at the last several decades, pretty much all of them have either been heavily suppressed or totally destroyed. And Iran is really the last one. So if you destroy Iran, you've created an Israeli superpower. Basically, Israel is the military superpower of the region. It's a tremendous shift in what was maybe when it started, it was a very small kind of nascent country with US Support to become a superpower. So you've created a potential competitor to America. In the future, someone could stop American interests. Someone who. A country which is not very popular with Americans as well, too. You're creating a potential enemy, someone who's also embedded in your own systems and surveillance in a very strong way. This is completely against American interests. Leave aside all the moral judgments and so forth about it. Creating another rival or potential rival superpower or regional power has never been in American policy before. The right thing to do is to balance Israel against its other neighbors and create sort of a stasis that the Americans can be at top of and be the interlocutor for and so forth. Tapping right now is very injurious. And if you have a situation maybe 20 years down the road, 30 years down the road where American views in Israel have soured a lot, but because all Israel's enemies have been destroyed by America, it's extremely powerful. They can do that to stop our own interests in the region and abroad. They can use it to threaten people in America. It's not an outlandish scenario. And Israel, despite everything, is not a treaty ally if they're not United States. And the reason they're not treaty allies, if they're an ally, they'd have to support us if we had a problem. They didn't want to have that reciprocal relationship. It's a very one way sponsorship relationship. So I think that this destruction of Iran, potentially the degradation of Iran and everything that may happen going forward, this is something which is tremendously injurious to American interests and it's against the basic philosophy of American foreign policy as it's been constructed for a century.
- [80:50]
Sagar Enjeti
Yes, you're right.
- [80:51]
Crystal Ball
Very interesting.
- [80:52]
Sagar Enjeti
Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate you.
- [80:54]
Murtaza Hussain
Thanks guys.
- [81:13]
Crystal Ball
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Crystal Ball
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Murtaza Hussain
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Sagar Enjeti
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Murtaza Hussain
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Sagar Enjeti
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