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- [00:00]
A
Hello, dear listeners, welcome back to Conflicted. Amondeen. You're back. There you are. You've been away for a couple of weeks. How are you doing?
- [00:08]
B
I'm fine, thank you so much. I've been very busy with so many things, both personal and professional. But I am back and the Oracle of Arabia is coming with lots of exclusive information here on Conflicted.
- [00:23]
A
That's good. I know that we were all champing at the bit really, to see what you have to say about the latest developments in the Middle east and, and elsewhere for the last. What is it now? Hundred days? I don't know. How many days has it been since the 28th of February? Almost 100 days.
- [00:39]
B
90 days, I would say.
- [00:40]
A
90 days. For the last 90 days, we've all been driven mad by the maelstrom of events, the difficulty of forecasting even one day away given how unpredictable certain parties are in the conflict. And yet still we always value your insights. Do you want to just before we head to the theme music, do you want to give us a headline line?
- [01:03]
B
Well, we will be talking about OPEC and why the UAE exited opec and it's not what you think. That's the first thing I must say. And the second thing is we'll be talking about how Trump is driving everyone mad, including his own allies with his whiplash inducing mood swings when it comes to what to do with Iran. And you know, ironically, he might be doing a lot of damage himself, you know, more than what the Iranians are doing to the reputation of the United States as a credible ally and a credible force.
- [01:38]
A
Ironically, Eamon, or ironically, I got the first dad joke in. Well done.
- [01:49]
B
Well done, my apprentice.
- [01:50]
A
There you go. Dear listeners, let's get right into it. Dear listeners, before we begin, I have a confession to make and an apology to make. In last Thursday's episode, an interview I did with the LSE professor Mark David Baer about his new book Children of Abraham. I stated ignorantly that the Quran explicitly states at one point to kill Jews. And a dear listener and a dear friend told me, look, Thomas, that's not true. And I'm afraid I confused some controversial hadith which do say that, with the Quran itself. That is a massive error. There's so much misinformation out there. Rising anti Semitism as we know, but rising Islamophobia too, as we know. And I do not want to contribute to any ignorance or hatred, so I just have to apologize. I retract that statement. It was untrue and I really felt ashamed of myself. So dear listeners, forgive me.
- [03:03]
B
Say Hail Mary 10 times and then I'll forgive you. You gain my absolution here.
- [03:08]
A
Thank you. Thank you, Father Confessor. Right, Eamon. On 28th April, the UAE announced that it was forthwith going to leave OPEC, or indeed OPEC as it is now known. And that withdrawal took effect on the 1st of May. What's going on? This, I think came out of the blue for most people. You hadn't discussed the possibility of this move. Perhaps even people like yourself with an ear to the ground in the GCC were a little bit surprised by it. I don't know you'll reveal that. But what is the immediate, let's say, background context to this decision?
- [03:53]
B
First of all, I was surprised. Many people were surprised. Anyone who tell you, oh, I wasn't surprised. No, people were surprised because it was a very drastic decision. After all, the UAE has been in OPEC for 54, 55 years. They were among the people who joined fast. So even they joined before the UAE became the UAE, they joined as Abu Dhabi.
- [04:19]
A
Yeah, because as the dear listeners probably know, but just in case they have forgotten, OPEC was founded in 1960. So a decade before the UAE was established. Its original purpose, you know, was to give oil producing states in the Middle east, but also like Venezuela, more control over the marketing of that resource to help the, to keep the price point at a level that was conducive to the national development of those countries. And though initially OPEC was relatively weak across the 1970s as a result of geopolitical shifts and crises, obviously the 67 war, the 73 war, the oil embargo that was launched by Saudi Arabia and others, et cetera, really shifted the dial for OPEC. And it became across the 80s and into the 90s, a major player on the world scene. Now I think it's safe to say that, that since the 90s, its power has waned. Oil producing nations have proliferated in that time, most of which don't belong to opec. Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia especially, but also the uae, which both have big spare capacity in oil, were able to very much work together to set the global market price. This is now going to end, Eamon. At least it's going to make OPEC much weaker because the UAE has taken its spare capacity and out of that calculus.
- [05:43]
B
Yes, but we have to understand why was it as many analysts saying, oh, it was the UAE sticking it up to Saudi Arabia after the dispute between them over the Yemen policy became more or less almost violent between them, between Their proxies, let's put it this way. And after the UAE withdrew from Yemen, also we have some saying that it is the anger of the UAE over Saudi Arabia, Arabia's refusal to take more proactive role against Iran during the conflict.
- [06:20]
A
Some analysts also link it to the UAE's growing close ties with Israel. It's all part of the geopolitical shift in general in the region.
- [06:28]
B
Absolutely. Some people say it was an Israeli American orchestrated move to weaken OPEC and opec. But the reality is completely different. Completely different. And I will explain it now.
- [06:42]
A
Okay, so when the UAE announced its departure, its energy minister did say explicitly that the move was not political, not directed against anyone. And he said that the UAE was leaving OPEC on good terms. Are you saying that's true? Because I don't think that the UAE's partners in the cartel, including Saudi Arabia, the most important one, knew they were going to withdraw. So they must have felt a little bit like it was a slap in the face.
- [07:13]
B
Well, so in the last Friday of April, a senior member of the Al Nahayan royal family of Abu Dhabi, he's a cousin of the president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, also known as mbz, he traveled to Mar a Lago along with two other members of the kind of like elite circles of Abu Dhabi to discuss the final details. And to put the sherry at the top of the cake when it comes to the deal. That would mean that the uae, at the request of the United States, would leave opec.
- [07:55]
A
Oh, so the United States did play a role in that decision.
- [07:59]
B
Indeed. And nothing to do with politics or cartel breaking or anything. The listeners will be surprised here. Now, let's go back three months earlier in the year. The uae, as we know, the overall reserves, the oil, conventional oil, I'm going to put conventional between two inverted commas. Conventional oil reserves are estimated around 112 billion barrels. The Saudis are around 265, up to 290, depending on who you talk to. A billion barrels of oil, Venezuela is 313, but that's very heavy, very difficult to extract, very difficult to refine oil. But that's a different story altogether. Iran is 158. Iraq is about 140. Kuwait is 102. So at least I'm giving people the,
- [08:53]
A
you know, the relative amounts. Exactly. UAE has a sizable reserve of conventional oil.
- [08:58]
B
Exactly. Now, they announced the discovery of a large block of unconventional oil, also known as shale oil. So they found shale oil, but the quantity is what made everyone raise their eyebrows. It was 220 billion barrels of oil.
- [09:22]
A
Holy moly.
- [09:23]
B
Yes. So the entirety of the US which is now a superpower when it comes to the shale oil revolution as they call it, the entire reserve of the US is estimated around 90, up to 110 so they discovered in just one block, twice more than what the US possess.
- [09:44]
A
But, but wait, wait, wait, wait. Amen. Amen, please. I mean, the US is a vast landmass and its shale oil reserves are scattered around, you know, let's say largely the northern to central Midwest, but nonetheless it's everywhere. The UAE is much smaller in terms of land. Where are all these new shale reserves in the, in the country?
- [10:03]
B
It's in Alfrah region, which is the area between the western border with Saudi Arabia all the way into the southern tip of the border with Saudi Arabia also. So it's in the desert.
- [10:19]
A
Wow. Amazing. What a cash cow. So this obviously changes things.
- [10:24]
B
Exactly. Now there is one teeny tiny problem is the fact that adnoch, which is the Abu Dhabi national oil company, who I have a great relationship with, some of the senior people there and I know them for a while now. So Adnoc, of course don't have any expertise whatsoever when it comes to shale oil because their entire Expertise, their entire 50 year history is actually in conventional oil extraction. Shale oil is a very different story story altogether. So they need to get the expertise from the top holder of technology when it comes to shale oil extraction, and that would be the United States and the multiple companies that are involved in that, including a company called EOG Resources. So they know how to extract it. They know the technology, the mechanism and refinement and all of that. Now of course they went to the Trump administration and they said, look, how do we get to benefit from that? Because the conventional wisdom is that you go and you buy controlling stakes in some of these companies that have the technology in the US and then import the technology. But the energy sector in the US is considered to be a sensitive national security sector and therefore foreign investors are blocked unless if they have exceptions and exemptions. So they went to the Trump administration, they explained, of course, President Trump saying 220, that's more than twice what we have. You know what, how about we make an alliance here? Forget about opec, because even if you try to extract it yourself, what's the point? Because you are always capped at 3.5 million barrels per day, which is your top limit already. The UAE have the capacity for 4.8 million. They have that capacity. They have an extra 1.3 million capacity for their conventional oil, which they can't even use. So why would they go and extract from the 220 billion that they found? By the way, the 220 doesn't mean that they can extract all of it. In fact, at their current technology, the UAE can barely get 20 out of the 220.
- [12:49]
A
Oh, that's interesting because why? It's like too deep down or something like that?
- [12:54]
B
No, it's the way that it is saturated within the rocks and the sand. And so therefore, like, I mean, you really need, you know, some heavy, you know, new technology, which the US have. It relies on physics, on chemistry, on a lot of things, on engineering. It's like chemistry, engineering and physics. All of this has to be involved in order to extract the 170, 180 billion instead of just the 20 billion. And so they went to Trump and Trump said, there is no point, my dear friends, unless if you well, leave OPEC and then enter into an exclusive alliance with the US and Canada in the future. And that will be called the shale oil alliance. So the shale oil producers are different from the conventional oil producers and they have different interest in what pricing should be, what production level should be and how it should be. So Adnoc, based on President Trump request, will invest $50 billion in US shale oil companies over the next five to 10 years in order to gain their technology, IPs, patents, expertise, all of these things, technology and techniques, and bring them to the UAE for the purpose of beginning to tap into that huge amount of wealth they found.
- [14:16]
A
It sounds like a 21st century example of what happened in the 1930s in Saudi Arabia, another very close relationship between Arabian petroleum wealth and American know how. It's also a sign, Eamon, that technologically and in so many other ways, despite you know, what one reads and thinks a lot of the time, America still is at the top of the global game. Before we talk about what this means for opec, what this means for the region, et cetera, I want to focus a little bit more on this discovery. Because if the UAE has found such shale reserves in its territory near the border with Saudi Arabia, is there not a chance that Saudi Arabia too will have massive shale oil reserves?
- [15:01]
B
It goes without saying that actually, yes, it is true, because Bahrain itself sits upon, you know, a massive shale oil reserves estimated around between 16 and 21 billion barrels, which they never tapped into. This could mean that Abu Dhabi could lend Bahrain a hand in even extracting that themselves and then raising the living standards in Bahrain. Bahrain is, as you know, my homeland. This is where I come from. But also it is the least resource rich of all the GCC countries. And this means that the Bahrain could in theory piggyback on Adnoc and UAE's newfound expertise coming from the US in order for them to start their own shale oil revolution. And that would improve living standards there, which already decent by Middle Eastern standards, but it will double, possibly even triple that kind of wealth.
- [16:08]
A
Well, what about Saudi though? I mean Aramco must be looking on with green envy. I mean, honestly, goodness gracious, not necessarily.
- [16:17]
B
You know, we could see shale oil in the Empty quarter and also at the moment, I mean, wherever shale oil is, shale gas is nearby. And that's why we could see significant amount of investments going there. The first thing I did when I heard all of this was to go and buy some decent amount of shares in Adnoc Gas because that's the future. Apart from the fact that they actually have very generous dividends, I must say. But yes, what does it mean for the rest of OPEC and for Saudi Arabia in particular? Of course the Saudis are going to be flipping mad because now the Emiratis freed themselves from the 3.5 million cap per day and they can go up to 4.8. Well, not under the current circumstances, but the idea is their current pipeline from Abu Dhabi to Fujairah brings about 1.5 million barrels per day. They want to build a second pipeline now which will make it all the way to 3.5 million barrels per day,
- [17:26]
A
which is supposed to be online by 2027, I read.
- [17:29]
B
Exactly. Which is next year. Literally. Literally. They are going to build it in 11 months.
- [17:35]
A
And you know, recent events around the Strait of Hormuz have only supercharged that effort, I imagine.
- [17:40]
B
Exactly. So when people say that, you know, this was a politically calculated decision, this was to break the oil markets, this was to do this and to do that to one country or another. No, this is a mutually beneficial relationship between Abu Dhabi and dc. If you were in the shoes of Abu Dhabi, you would have done the same.
- [18:07]
A
So just to summarize, three months ago Abu Dhabi announces its discovery of these massive shale oil reserves, which immediately begins a negotiation with the Trump administration over access to American technology and shale, resulting in this deal signed in Mar a Lago at the end of April and the announcement that the UAE will be withdrawing from opec, which will have annoyed Saudi Arabia and the other partners. But it wasn't done in order to slap Saudi Arabia. It was done in pursuit of UAE and indeed America's mutual national interests and the Saudis and the rest of OPEC are just going to have to deal with it.
- [18:44]
B
Yes.
- [18:45]
A
So how does this change our understanding of the Iran war? We're going to take a break shortly and then the rest of this episode will focus on the latest in that war. But just to finish this discussion of Opec and the UAE's withdrawal from Opec, it shows the long term energy significance of that region. It's not that the region, you know, as I can remember 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, you always read those books and reports that come out saying that we've reached peak oil, that the Arabian region is going to descend into chaos because oil's going to run out. And yet once again we see that the ingenuity of engineers, the development of technology is neutralizing all of those doom and gloom pronouncements. So clearly the region is going to remain for a long time the energy axis superpower of the world. Which means that the geostrategic calculus underlying this war remains salient.
- [19:51]
B
Exactly. And this is why I need to remind the listeners, because there will be some listeners who are green, either with envy or because basically they are green. As an environmentalist, I need to remind the listeners that there are three kinds of transportations, that there is no way in hell or heaven to make them green, not before 50 years from now. And that is the freight shipping industry. So you have the tankers, the freight, the container ships, forget it. These giant engines, they are not going to run on batteries. It's never going to happen. The second industry is aviation. There will be no commercial passenger jet that can actually carry 100 or 50 or even 10 passengers that run on electricity alone, only on renewable. And third, it will be the land freight, whether it is trains for passenger and of course containers, or the trucks, the container trucks. These are not going to be also green anytime soon.
- [21:08]
A
And I want to point out, Eamon, that all three of those types of transportation are heavily sort of built into the United States military apparatus still underwrites the entire global order. So the fact that the United States military needs gas means that we're going to need gas.
- [21:26]
B
Exactly. Not only that, there are 294 direct products coming from oil that actually we need, from plastics, you know, to equipments, to medicines, to makeup, you know, and beauty products and all of these things, you know, even perfumes, for God's sake. And also the most important thing is agri nutrients.
- [21:49]
A
Of course, people forget all the time.
- [21:52]
B
Yeah, agrinutrients, which is important. And so the Idea that we are going to see. One of the reasons why we don't see peak oil ever is because of the global population expansion. Because despite the population decline in certain jurisdictions, the overall global population is growing still. We will hit by 2050, 10 billion. We are adding 1 billion every eight years. So we're going to hit 10, 11 billion soon. And they need to eat, which means more agrinutrients and which means more transportation and freight, which means like I mean more demand on oil and gas. Sorry people, but it's going to happen. And we need more fertilizers in order to fertilize, you know, every, you know, every acre and every square inch of arable land. There is not going to be peak oil at least for another 30 or 40 years.
- [22:45]
A
So what do you think then, you know about OPEC itself? Is it going to just inexorably decline, do you think? Qatar people forget left in 2018. Now that was a little bit political. It was during the Saudi led boycott of Qatar. And Qatar is largely a natural gas producer. It was certainly not a swing producer of petroleum. So it's departure had less impact on opec. And in the meantime, you know, OPEC was strengthened and ties with Russia were strengthened, et cetera. So do you think, Eamonn, seriously, that OPEC has a long term future or is this the beginning of the end of that arrangement which was more suited to the 20th century?
- [23:23]
B
I think it's the beginning of the end. I think OPEC will survive but not in its current form when it comes to imposing mandatory quotas on its members. I think it will survive as more of an association for coordination rather than for mandatory production quotas. I think it will become more of a diplomatic rather than commercial organization because it served its purpose at some point. But several issues made it to decline whether it is OPIC or opec. First it was Covid and then of course the most important one is the Ukraine Russian war which affected another major producer in the OPEC alliance. And then you have Iran which is a member but also under sanction. Can you believe it? Like two members under heavy sanctions within OPEC and opec. So it's not exactly an organization that is worth being part of unless if it's far better coordinated when it comes to national policy. And for the UAE they found that look, it was good enough for us when we had only conventional oil. Now we have two kinds of oil, conventional and non conventional and we need to tap into both.
- [24:42]
A
Everything's changing when it comes to global oil. I mean the Americans move against Venezuela earlier this year, and the American more or less capture of the Venezuelan oil industry also will have changed the OPEC situation. So, hmm, very interesting, Eamon. Thanks for that. My goodness, once again you've taken what was merely hearsay gossip and some sort of, let's say, politically speculative information, and you've grounded it in reality. And I think we can all say we understand why the UAE left OPEC on the 1st of May. So we're going to take a quick break and when we get back, you're going to help us to the extent that anyone can understand the Iran war and where it stands now. We'll be right back.
- [25:33]
C
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- [27:03]
A
Dear listeners, before we get back to the show, I want quickly to tell you about a fundraising campaign I'm taking part in. As you all know, I'm an Orthodox Christian and the parish church I attend where I live in the north of England, which at present only borrows a chapel and has no church building of its own. We have an amazing opportunity to acquire a beautiful medieval Anglo Saxon church right in the center of town. It's a real fixer upper and so we need money. If you feel as I do that it is vital that in the 21st century we do what we can to build genuine community, cultivate true virtue, and revive faith and spiritual knowledge. Well, then perhaps you'll consider giving generously to this fundraising campaign. It really is a great opportunity, a chance to breathe life back into a long neglected building, making it once again a place of worship. You can find the link to the GoFundMe campaign in the show notes and a link to the short documentary film I produced, which is all about the parish and our humble ambitions. Thank you very much. Now back to the show. We're back, Eamonn. We're going to talk about the Iran war, but at the outset I want to remind the listeners that we talked about it in yesterday's Q and A episode. For paid subscribers only members of the conflicted community. Dear listeners, we will not repeat ourselves here. If you want to understand and hear and know about all the stuff that Amon revealed in yesterday's Q and A, and I promise you it's worthwhile, then you will have to become a dearest listener and join the conflicted community. We will not repeat ourselves today what we talked about yesterday. Eamon. We talked about Iraq as a battlefield in the Iran war. We talked about Israeli secret bases in Iraq used during the Iran war. We talked about why Gulf states cannot freely enter the war, despite what some people are advocating. We talked about Trump's misreading of Iranian strategy, Pakistan's role as a spoiler or a mediator, and the strategic logic of blockades versus kinetic wars. So we talked about a lot of stuff and that's not all we talked about in yesterday's Q and A. So dear listeners become dearest listeners. Listen to the Q and A today. Eamonn. I want to start out actually talking about Iraq because I woke up this morning and saw in the news that it has been revealed that the majority of drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, at least since the war was launched at the end of February, originated from Iraq. Can you confirm this and if so, what is the significance of this revelation?
- [29:57]
B
Well, the report was a bit misleading. Saudi Arabia was hit by roughly about 500 drones and about 250 plus ballistic missiles. All the ballistic missiles came from Iran. More than half of the drones came from Iraq. And this is, I think, where the report were misleading. But then it's written by journalists. And you know, basically what I think about journalists.
- [30:24]
A
Okay, well, you know, that seems to me then to be linked to another report that has come out about the UAE and Saudi Arabia having launched secret attacks on on Iran since the outbreak of the war. People were wondering, why haven't they done anything? Well, it seems now that it has been revealed that they did do something. Both countries, in a tit for tat way, launched secret reprisals against Iranian attacks. The UAE, shortly before the 7 April ceasefire was announced, launched attacks you've mentioned on the show before, Levon island, for example. But perhaps, you know, other targets. The Saudis in late March launched attacks as a reprisal against, I think, if I've understood correctly, drone attacks on certain strategic installations in Saudi. At which point, apparently drone attacks originating from Iran did drop, suggesting that the Saudi attacks did send a message. And it's at that point that drone attacks began largely to come from Iraq. So the Iranians thought, well, we're not going to launch direct drone attacks on Saudi anymore because they'll attack us, but they probably won't attack Iraq, so we'll send them from there. Is that kind of what happened?
- [31:40]
B
No. Again, the journalists basically are. They get the information, they muddle it, they don't understand it because they are not military experts. They are not exactly from the region. And so they end up from their desks in D.C. and New York mixing up things. So let me clarify this. First, I will start with the UAE and finish with Saudi Arabia. The UAE retaliated from day five of the war, not like from near the end of the war, but from day five of the war. They started by attacking installations on Kushim island in Bandar Abbas, and then of course, they attacked Levan. And then after that they attacked other places in the island of Syri and in the island of Abu Musa and other places. In total, 71 airstrikes in total. And it was throughout the war and it was always in retaliation for a significant attack by the Iranians against their installations. For the Saudis, they did not attack Iran at all. However. However, they did hit back at Iraq. So they did hit. And significantly, there were at least two dozen airstrikes against Iraqi militias coordinated with Kuwaitis, also using their air force and missile force to strike positions of the Iraqi militias that are backed by Iran inside Iraq, whether it is in Jarf Al Sahar or near the Syrian border. There has been a significant number of strikes by the Saudis against the Iraqi side. Now, of course, because the Saudis want the line between them and the Iranians to remain open. I can't speak on behalf of the Saudi leadership or the UAE leadership. I'm just basically explaining what happened. So the journalists got it absolutely wrong. The attacks from Iran against Saudi Arabia continued and they sent 250 ballistic missiles. And the last, roughly about eight ballistic missiles were against Saudi Arabia and in particularly Jubail. And I will explain this. Jubail, which is 80 km north of Khubar, where I was born and my family live, some of my nephews and cousins, they work in Jubail itself, in the petrochemical sector there.
- [34:10]
A
Huge petrochemical sector there. Huge.
- [34:12]
B
Exactly. And the Iranians used the infamous Khorram Shahar 4 ballistic missile, which split into 24 warheads and then land down, which is very difficult to intercept. And that was in the last three, four nights of the conflict. And that was when the Saudis threatened retaliation. And that's when Pakistan entered the scene. Because why, if the Saudis were to retaliate against Iran, then that will drag Pakistan. And so this is when the Pakistani awful role started to show up. And of course, Trump, you know, was spooked by so many things at that time. And this is where I will have to talk about what spooked Trump at that time, because that's what spooked Trump is the UAE getting involved so much, Is Saudi Arabia petrochemical sector being hit so badly that they want to retaliate directly against Iran? And at the same time, this is when they rescued the two pilots from inside Iranian territory. All of this spooked Trump.
- [35:18]
A
Yeah. So you see, dear listeners, why it's useful having a dummy like me getting things wrong so that can correct me and you vicariously can understand what really went on. Well, I don't know what the hell's going on over there, Eamonn. It's a total chaos. This is very helpful. But before you talk about what spooked Trump, can I just ask about another report that emerged last week with a follow up this morning, both in the New York Times. So, you know, I'll probably get this wrong as well, but if so, blame the New York Times. So last week, the New York Times said that the IRGC has restored operational access to 30 of their 33 ballistic missile sites and still fields 70% of its missile launchers. Because in terms of the launchers, much of what was targeted during the war were actually decoys. So the Israeli US Effort did not destroy as much of that apparatus as they thought. And in terms of the missiles themselves, the ballistic missile cities are buried deep underground, carved out of really hard granite. And though the US Israeli attacks managed to sort of collapse the entrance to those facilities, in the meantime, the IRGC have managed to dig out the sites and retrieve the missiles so they can Bring them back online. Is this true? The report today said that the IRGC were prepared at the beginning of the war to sustain a three month campaign. And so they used their missile arsenal sparingly, but now are threatening to unleash hell if war resumes. This runs counter to reports we were receiving and things we discussed on this show that the American US Attacks in February and March were devastating to Iran. So what's the truth? And if the New York Times reporting is at least close to the truth, is this possibly why Trump is delaying or hesitating to resume the war?
- [37:20]
B
Okay, so I must admit that the New York Times report is true because it sources its contents from the US Military and the Israeli military and regional intelligence officials here in the GCC and beyond. Unfortunately, it's true. And I will come as to why this happened. One of the things that, and I show you, like, basically why this war should have been led by the Israelis and not the Americans. And this is like in my own belief, you see, when you fight a war, especially with an enemy like Iran, you have to fight with your entire heart and soul in it. Not like the way Trump wanted, like in, basically I'm going to just give them some love taps, as he always like to call it, and they will cry uncle Trump is behaving with Iran as if he is a real estate don from New York, tough real estate guy. And these people are materialistic bunch of people who their entire calculation will be based on materialism and that they will cave. Yeah, and that's where he got it wrong.
- [38:34]
A
You talked about this in yesterday's Q and A, Eamonn, and it was extremely illuminating.
- [38:38]
B
Exactly.
- [38:38]
A
So that's, that's clearly a problem. So what would the Israelis have kind of done differently if they were in charge? Especially since I thought, and correct me if I'm wrong, that it was Israeli advice to launch a political decapitation strike at the outset of the war that you think was wrong headed. So I'm a bit confused now.
- [38:58]
B
It's not about that. It's about the fact that the Israelis got it right when it comes to attacking electricity and fuel. Without attacking electricity and fuel, Trump has more or less dropped the ball. You see, these missile cities rely on electricity to stay online. These missile cities rely on telecommunications centers to remain online and receiving orders and giving orders and all of that. And these missile cities and factories rely on fuel to remain functioning, whether it is to cut off their backup generators or to stop them from fueling basically their missiles and the launchers and the vehicles and all of that. The problem is Trump said, no, that's too drastic, and decided not to do it. That's the first thing. So that's the first big strategic mistake. The Israelis were right, absolutely, utterly right to do that and to suggest it. However, Trump just chickened out from doing what was strategically necessary to disable the IRGC capability. Yes, it would have hurt ordinary Iranians, but the question is either you fight to win or sometimes in a hostage situation, sometimes you cut off electricity and water to the building for the purpose of disorienting and dismantling the enemy's ability to fight back. That's the first mistake. The second mistake is that he was so utterly spooked by the near possibility that an American pilot could be paraded on Iranian tv and we have the ghost of Carter coming to haunt him.
- [40:56]
A
Ah, so this is what spooked him. You mentioned something spooked him in the few days leading up to the 7 April ceasefire announcement, and it was that despite the tremendous success of the double rescue, which, you know, at the time, the American military was riding high and it was a huge boost for American morale. But Trump interpreted that as a near disaster for him politically.
- [41:19]
B
Yes, Here is the problem is the fact that he decided, you know what? But at that moment, he had two things that were spooking him at the same time. First, the near miss with the pilots. The second was Saudi and the UAE are fighting back in Iran and Iraq. And he was calculating that if both countries were to enter the war directly, this will spook the markets. And he is fighting with one eye on the front line and one eye on the markets. And this way you can't aim properly if both your eyes are on two different directions. This is the reality of focus, focus, focus. That's a reality. If you want to win, you have to focus. So he was spooked. And so this is when Pakistan, who, of course, their general, Hassan Munir, have a private business partnership with Steve Witkoff, who is the special envoy on Iran's nuclear file. They both are partners in a bitcoin mining operation in Pakistan data center. So allegedly, let me put that in use of them allegedly here before Steve Witkoff. Sue me. Which is, by the way, like an. I mean, it's easily provable. But anyway, Asim Munir called Trump and said, look, I can get you the Iranians to accept a deal. I think after all of the beating they received, they must be desperate for a deal. And why the Pakistanis are doing that 3D chess for them. One curry favor with Trump. Two, curry favor with Iran. Three, curry favor with Saudi Arabia.
- [42:58]
A
And favor with Iran is important to Pakistan because of why?
- [43:01]
B
Well, because of the fact that Iran is going to be a cheap source post war of natural gas to Pakistan. They want to open the port of Gwad or to Iran to become an alternative port away from the sanctions and all of that. And Pakistan want to make money, as simple as that.
- [43:22]
A
I see.
- [43:23]
B
So corruption, corruption, corruption all over the place, even all the way to some parts of the White House. So now we have Trump telling the Israelis, oh, no, basically they will seek a deal. And this is when President Trump possibly mentioned, from the 7th of April until now, mentioned the word deal in various forms, maybe 4,000 times, he mentioned the word deal in the context of it being a wonderful deal, a great deal, an amazing deal, a tremendous deal. You know, the beautiful deal, the big beautiful deal.
- [43:56]
A
In a way worse than all those mentionings of the word deal has been all of his deadlines, all of his red lines, none of which he has lived up to. You know, it's funny, we used to talk with great scorn about Obama's red line in Syria when the Assad regime was threatening to use chemical weapons against their own people. And we say on this show many times, it's like a massive sort of turning point in the history of modern times that when Obama in the end didn't make good on that threat and allowed the Assad regime to use chemical weapons, that it shifted the geopolitics, the geopolitical calculation, emboldening Russia at the expense of America, encouraging Russia to get involved in Syria without any great reaction from the U.S. now, Trump, who was supposed to be the guy who, unlike Obama, made good on his threats, has now, I think six times, really, officially, yes, stated that unless this happens, all hell will break loose. Six times. And he has not made good on the threat.
- [45:05]
B
I think he doesn't realize how damaging this has been to the US Credibility, not only in front of enemies and adversaries or other great powers in the world, but also in front of his own allies, whether in Europe or in the Middle East. We can't trust a word you say because you are unpredictable. You give the Iranians so many deadlines and then you chicken out at the last moment and you use the request of Pakistan and Saudi and whatever and all of that and Qatar to say that, okay, at the request of other leaders. I mean, even his own MAGA base are beginning to rebel against this servile attitude.
- [45:44]
A
Okay, I wanna talk about Trump, his strategy his tactics, his personality at the end of this episode. But before we get there, what about what Trump said last night, America time this morning, Europe and Middle east time, that the leaders of the uae, Saudi Arabia and Qatar called him individually, begging him to hold off from resuming the war so that diplomacy can continue because a deal is right around the corner and they feared Iranian attacks on their energy installations. And so he says, at the request of the uae, Saudi and Qatar, I have agreed to let the deal making continue. Now, who knows what's behind this? It might all be a smokescreen. There's a long weekend coming up in America. Possibly this is going to be a mask hiding Trump's decision to resume the war. Then nonetheless, did these three phone calls happen?
- [46:44]
B
First of all, my understanding, I don't know about Qatar and what Qatar requested, but when it comes to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, I was able to gleam some information here. There were no requests. You know, basically it was inquiries about the rules of engagement this time, because the Saudis and the Emiratis, you know, MBS and MBZ are inquiring about if you are going to resume conflict. And they have no idea. You know, by the way, he never told them, oh, I'm going to attack tomorrow. And he never told them. They are just asking the question about the rules of engagement. What are they allowed to do? Because in the latest Iranian phone call between the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Arakchi, and the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, Fehsab Al Farhan, the veiled threats from the Iranian side against the Internet cables, the fiber optic cables, the seven cables that run underneath the Hormuz Strait into the GCC were rather alarming. $10 trillion worth of financial traffic go through these cables. And the Iranians are saying, these cables are going underneath our territory. So they come through our territory. We have to start charging, and we will charge, of course. This is an international body of water. This is not your effing territory. Just F off. I mean. But it was very clear when the Iranians recently denied a request from Saudi and the UAE for a specialist undersea cable maintenance company to provide essential maintenance to the cables. And the Iranians refused unless if significant sums of money were to be paid, and then for all the countries in the region to agree to pay rent on these cables going through that is proportionate to the economic benefit of these cables. Now, this is billions of dollars a year is extortion. So the leaders are saying from what the Saudis understood from the Iranians, because they read between the lines, is that you don't pay another conflict. We're going to cut these cables and we will leave you in the dark, you know, which the Iranians already left their own people in the dark now for 90 days without Internet. So the Saudis and the Emiratis were asking, are you ready to protect these cables at all costs? Because if they do that, you know, the Emiratis, and to some extent the Saudis will retaliate against the telecommunications sector of Iran and make sure basically that the Internet has gone there forever. In other words, they will do it. They will go after phone centers and all of that, basically, and disrupt even the mobile phone service within Iran. Now, that spoke Trump again. And so this is why he said, at the request of these leaders, I'm going to stop, because this is worrying. Iran now is behaving like a hostage taker. And a cutting off of these cables will have a significant effect on the global economy. The stock markets basically all across the globe will suffer significantly. And we have Saudi Arabia and the uae, especially the uae, threatening Armageddon. And they can, if anyone knows about UAE military capabilities, just go online and just have a look. And of course, Trump doesn't want that to happen because he wants a war that he can control, and that's his problem. You know, if you don't want the UAE or Saudi or anyone else to get involved, let Bibi finish the job. Let him use Israel's might, you know, to do it, you know, and let the Emiratis help the Israelis in that. If the Saudis don't want to do it, and let the Saudis take care of the Houthis and the Iraqi militias, you know, in Yemen and in Iraq, you know, but you have to go all in, because right now, right now, he made the big mistake of stopping the war on April 7. If he continued the war until now with such, you know, merciless, relentless, tenacious, you know, energy and power, and went after their energy sector, went after their electricity sector, went after the telecommunications sector sector, went after their fuel sector. If he did that, they would have surrendered by now, because that's it. What will they fight with? Sticks and stones? So this is, I think, where Trump lost his will, and now he realized it. But now he realized something even worse, Thomas. The only way, the only way he can get out of this war is to fight it. There is no other way.
- [51:55]
A
Okay, well, you foresaw my next question, my friend, which was, what's going to happen now, I don't want to put you in the position of having to forecast Something for this war. Okay, I've put you in that position too many times. And nobody can forecast, no one. But there are structural forces at work that mean that certain things are likely to happen whether people want it to happen or not, including the President of the United States. He cannot cut and run. It's just not structurally possible. He cannot just stop the conflict he started. It's not possible. It would be such an egg on the face of America and would.
- [52:32]
B
Let me put it this way, Let me put it this way. Lindsey Graham will impeach him.
- [52:36]
A
Oh, wow. Does Lindsey Graham have that kind of power?
- [52:40]
B
No, it's not about that. He has the power of the Republicans in the Senate, basically, and the House. And he can just basically say to the President, look, we are behind you. Go and fight. But if you are a coward and you try to cut and run and you end up giving the entire Middle east to our enemies and adversaries like this and to a terrorist organization like the irgc, that would result in an impeachment. And he doesn't need the whole Republicans. He just needs 10 Republicans in the Senate and basically like in a 20 in the House. And the Democrats will do the rest
- [53:16]
A
to ally with the Democrats.
- [53:18]
B
Yeah, that's all he need. That's all he need. And of course, no one wants that. So Trump knows that he cannot sell. And that's why Lindsey Graham, in his veiled threat to Trump yesterday on X,
- [53:34]
A
I saw it, I read it. It was hardly veiled, I must say.
- [53:38]
B
Yeah. He said, but if you try to make a bad deal, we're gonna block it in Congress and there is nothing you can do about it. Go and fight and finish the fucking job, you know, or we will fucking impeach you. As simple as that.
- [53:51]
A
I'm not in a mood, Eamon, to see things from Donald Trump's perspective.
- [53:55]
B
Yeah, not me either.
- [53:57]
A
I know, I know you're not. But let's try to be fair to the man.
- [54:00]
B
Yes, I will.
- [54:01]
A
It's a complicated place that he's in, and it was complicated from the beginning. You know, Trump has long sought to destroy the IRGC and the Islamic Republic. From op EDS he was penning for the New York times in the 80s. It's clear that he has, for all these decades thought that American policy towards Iran has been too weak, craven, cowardly, et cetera. So he's on record really, for long, wanting something like a forceful confrontation with Iran. The fact that he balked, that he chickened out, that he was spooked, as you say, at the end of March, beginning of April. It's not in keeping really with that long term orientation. So maybe he was faced with some real constraints, like the depletion of America's missile capacity, like the inability to replenish that capacity fast enough, like very real. I mean, we say he looks at the market and yes, there's probably corruption to do with that amongst his allies and maybe his own sons, but there's also very real economic consequences for a market collapse, et cetera. So let's try to be fair to the man for a second. Haman, put your own animus and annoyance and irritation aside for a second, and God knows you've been gaslit. All of you people there in the region have been gaslit for 90 days.
- [55:24]
B
Exactly.
- [55:25]
A
What's the most charitable kind of way of framing Trump's actions?
- [55:31]
B
Okay, first of all, I will salute and give the man a credit for actually doing what he did, whether it is during the 12 days war last year or whether now, at least no American president since Carter ever confronted Iran the same way he did. He did more than what Reagan did in Operation Praying Mantis. At least he did not, you know, at least, like for now, he did not cut a run. In fact, if anything, the air bridge and the air armada and the sea armada continue to pour into the region. You know, tens of thousands of tons of, you know, weapons and equipments are actually like, you know, transported already over the past, you know, 45, 50 days. Actually, just in the last minutes, we are looking at the flight radar to see the huge amount, like in a dozen of C17 air armada coming to bring ammunitions into Israel, into Jordan and into the gcc. So, first of all, I give him the credit for first doing something and second, for not cutting a run so far. And also at the same time, I understand that he always campaigned on the fact that he doesn't want any foreign wars. But also at the same time, he is someone, as a president, understand that the might of America is linked to America being able to project that might globally. And that if it fails to project that might globally, the American economic system itself will buckle under the weight of a $38 trillion of debt. And that debt can only be sustained by the fact that the US Currency is the currency for three important pillars of the global economy. Reserve currency for the central banks, trade currency for global commodities, and of course, the energy currency. And the only reason the dollar is actually trusted is because of the trust in that naval and military might of the US if he cuts and run, US Lawmakers know what disaster that will be and especially in front of a mid sized power like Iran, a mid sized power that is tired and exhausted and on its last two legs, let's put it this way. So I will put myself in his shoes. However, he fears several things. There is midterm elections. There is also the high gas prices as a result of this. But also these high gas prices were the result of him stopping the war. But he realized also halfway during fighting the war that he is depleting his interceptors, his cruise missiles, his bombs, and he need to produce more of them. And it's only now that Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin and especially rtx, which owns Raytheon, they are working day and night to increase the capacity by 400% in terms of the production of ammunitions. Even he asked car manufacturers in the US to convert some of their unused capacity industrial capacity for the production of ammunitions. That shows that he did ask that. When the oil executives, especially Chevron and ConocoPhillips and Baker Hughes and ExxonMobil and others, when they met him in the White House in April, in late April, they told him for as long as the Iranians are actually, they don't need to occupy it anymore or even to say, oh, we are not closing it anymore. The fact that they are there and that at a will they can close the strait anytime, that in itself will always be a thorn at the US Credibility, credibility in its might to enforce the established global maritime capitalist order. And therefore, if you don't do anything about it, if you don't seize the strait, that's what I told them in that meeting. If you don't seize the strait, all of this will be in vain. So you have to remove the threat from the strait, which is exactly what the Emiratis and the Saudis want. So even his own oil executives in the US Ask him for that. And so he might have decided, you know what? I want to be fully prepared. I want to go and fight a war, but also at the same time in front of the global, you know, audience, I would have to be seen having begged, you know, that enemy for peace all the time and for a deal to the point where if I were to pour all the might of the US on them, you know, and, you know, really go on a campaign of wanton destruction, at least I will not be too blamed for not having tried to avoid that.
- [60:49]
A
Okay, Eamonn, you've just done a great job of exonerating Donald Trump of all of the accusations against him. That we ourselves earlier in this episode leveled against him.
- [60:59]
B
No, no, no, I'm not the now
- [61:01]
A
he seems to be a strategic genius and that he's a tactical genius and he's getting all his ducks in a row and it's all going to be fine.
- [61:08]
B
You asked me to be fair to the man, so I'm just saying, okay, put yourself in Trump's shoes. What will you do? And I just explained all the constraints that he faced and all the opportunities he is basically presented with and also the fact that there is no other choice. He have to fight his way out of this conflict because if he cut and run right now with a bad deal that Congress can block, he will have to go and fight again or be impeached one way or another. He cannot risk the credibility of the US like this. Even his own MAGA base are saying that. But it is so humiliating to see the President of the United States being directed by Qatar and Pakistan. You know, please, Mr. President, finish the job. Some of them said, I never supported the war, but I want this war to finish on good terms for the
- [62:01]
A
U.S. well, I mean, tomorrow we're releasing my interview with James Boies about his new book about the madman theory of political negotiation, geopolitics, et cetera. He tells the whole story of the development of that theory in the fifties by Henry Kissinger and others, the employment of that theory by Nixon and Kissinger during their time in the White House, and ultimately the employment of Donald Trump of that theory. And I think that this all pertains to that discussion. So, dear listeners, you can look forward to that tomorrow. I wonder if Donald Trump, I mean, it seems to me true what James argues, that he does employ the madman theory and that it's not that Trump is mad, as some people think, as I have sometimes thought, but that he is employing a sophistication, sophisticated theory of geopolitics, the madman theory. I just wonder, Eamonn, if he is employing it adroitly, if he is employing it well, or if he is relying too much on it without any other tactic like communicating to allies, keeping them on side, having a clear plan, a strategy, keeping your eye on the ball.
- [63:12]
B
No, unfortunately he's doing it well to an extent, like basically at the beginning against the Iranians. But he did not use it well in terms of keeping allies half informed, even.
- [63:28]
A
Well, that's it for today, really. I just want to end at least Eamon with a headline from you, just top line summary of your feeling of how Donald Trump's state visit to China went.
- [63:40]
B
I think it went okay. I mean, he was going after certain economic deals. I mean, there was no grand geopolitical or geostrategic shift resulting from that. It was all about maintaining cordial and non adversarial to an extent, like an, I mean, relationship with China. Because an economic war can be beneficial sometime, but it cannot be stretched for multiple quarters at some time. You have to signal to the markets that, okay, in order to sustain a war with Iran, we have to allow one, which is a headline from yesterday, Russia can now sell their oil again. There is a waiver that's an indication of an attack coming. That's separate from whatever he said. And second is he also extracted two promises from the Chinese not to supply lethal weapons to the Iranians and for the Chinese to accept the principle that Iran cannot have any legitimacy when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz, whether in terms of interference or charging tolls or anything like that. So he kind of, I mean, lined up his ducks in a row. It's just now up to him to find the courage to pull the trigger and just finish the job.
- [65:00]
A
Yeah, yeah. If the Chinese have agreed to that stipulation that Iran has no control over the Strait of Hormuz, it's another way that Trump covers his back when he does unleash hell on the Iranian regime and people to finish the job. So maybe Eamonn, when we talk next week, for next Tuesday's episode, war will have resumed. But dear listeners, who the hell knows?
- [65:23]
B
Exactly, we don't. No one knows.
- [65:26]
A
Nobody does. But we'll try our best to keep you informed about what has happened and also to game plan, at least what might happen based on what Eamon knows above all. Eamon. Dean, my dear friend, it was so great to have you back in the chair. Thanks for everything you bring to the show. We love you, man.
- [65:43]
B
Thank you.
- [65:44]
A
And you know, dear listeners, thank you for sticking with us. Remember, join the conflicted community. You have access to these Q and A's. I mean, the Q and A's are a lot of fun, there's a lot of laughs, but a lot of information. And you know, you get an opportunity to ask Aemon your questions and he always brings the goods and you know, one or two fairly good, sometimes pretty bad, sometimes dad jokes along the way. Okay, that's it, everyone. Goodbye.
- [66:13]
B
Okay, goodbye everyone. Stay safe.
- [66:16]
A
Conflicted is a message Heard Production Our executive producers are Jake Warren and Max Warren. This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.