Trump Goes from Obliteration to Negotiation on Iran

Summary

Pod Save the World — “Trump Goes from Obliteration to Negotiation on Iran” (March 25, 2026)
Hosts: Tommy Vietor & Ben Rhodes
Guest Interview: Edward Fishman (Director, Center for Geoeconomics, Council on Foreign Relations)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Tommy Vietor and Ben Rhodes analyze an astonishing 48-hour turnaround in President Trump’s Iran policy: from threatening war crimes and obliterating Iran’s infrastructure, to suddenly announcing that “productive” negotiations were underway and a war-ending deal was close. They break down the real motives behind Trump’s actions, the international ripple effects, the market implications, and the immense challenges to any diplomatic resolution. The episode also touches on the broader regional consequences, market manipulation concerns, Europe’s right-wing political movements, and a look at vulnerabilities in today's interconnected global economy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Great Moments in Oval Office History: The Pearl Harbor Gaffe

• (03:06) Tommy and Ben debut a segment by recalling a cringeworthy moment:
  • Quote:
    • Tommy (03:25): “Is World War II a sensitive subject in Japan?”
    • Ben (03:36): “I cannot think of a more cringe moment... he couldn’t even be subtle. Who knows more about secrecy than Japan? There was someone, like, groaned.”
• Reflection on the President’s improvisational, sometimes offensive approach to foreign affairs.
• Commentary on the low bar for diplomatic “success.”

2. Trump’s Iran Policy: From ‘Obliteration’ to ‘Negotiation’

• (08:15) Recap of Trump’s 180-degree policy shift over 48 hours.
• Saturday: Trump publicly threatens to obliterate Iranian power infrastructure (a war crime).
  • Quote:
    • Tommy (08:15): “If Iran doesn't fully open...the Strait of Hormuz...we will hit and obliterate their various power plants, starting with the biggest one first.”
• Sunday-Iranian Response: Iranian Parliament Speaker threatens attacks on regional infrastructure.
• Monday: Just ahead of his self-imposed deadline, Trump grants a five-day reprieve, claims “productive conversations” with Iran, and alludes to a near peace deal.
• Real-time confusion and skepticism from both sides.
• Trump Press Comments:
  • Quote:
    • Trump (09:29): “They called. I didn’t call. They want to make a deal...if it goes well, we’re gonna end up settling this. Otherwise, we’ll keep bombing our little hearts out.”

3. The Real Forces Behind Trump’s Policy Flip

• (11:08) Ben’s analysis: Market panic and Gulf states’ alarm, not real negotiation, drove Trump’s climbdown.
  • Gulf countries’ energy infrastructure was at risk if escalation continued.
  • Oil prices and markets reacted strongly, pressuring Trump to retreat.
• Suggestion of market manipulation: $580 million in oil futures traded minutes before Trump’s “negotiation” post.
  • Tommy (16:03): “...someone made a lot of money.”
  • Ben (16:03): “I can't think of anything more disgusting than somebody profiting off trading off a war...Trump is turning the dial on oil prices.”
• (17:40) Tommy: Echoes the pattern from trade wars and tariffs — “Trump always chickens out.”

4. Is There Any Real Diplomacy?

• (13:33) Ben and Tommy agree: There’s little evidence of US-Iran direct negotiations; intermediaries like Qatar, Oman, Egypt involved; Iran denies talks.
• Iran’s Speaker Galiboff:
  • Quote:
    • (15:38): “No negotiations with America have taken place. Fake news is intended to manipulate financial and oil markets and to escape the quagmire in which America and Israel are trapped.”
• Multinational efforts (Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) reportedly seeking an “off-ramp.”

5. Why a Real Deal Is So Hard

• (24:46) Tommy lays out Iran’s mistrust after multiple betrayals (JCPOA withdrawal, bombing during “productive” talks).
• Iran has new leverage: ability to inflict global pain and chaos.
• List of Iran’s maximalist demands: regional ceasefires, US base closures, reparations, sanctions relief, nuclear rights, “toll road” for Strait of Hormuz traffic.
• (25:05) Ben: “Everything the Iranians have done has suggested...this war has made the regime much more radical...they see diplomacy with Trump as something they can’t trust.”

6. Regional Power Politics & Military Deployments

• Gulf allies (UAE, Saudi Arabia) urge Trump to “finish the job,” adding complexity to US calculations.
• (36:17) Significant US military assets — Marines, amphibious ships, airborne units — heading to the region, suggesting real escalation is still a risk.
• Ben (37:50): “There is a methodical deployment...that could only have the purpose of supporting a ground operation in Iran...I really hope this doesn’t go forward.”

7. Iran’s Missile Capabilities & Escalations

• (41:35) Discussion of Iran's attempted missile strike against Diego Garcia, showing unexpectedly extended range and adaptation under fire.
• Ben (41:35): “They’re trying to make it feel like the reach of their weaponry puts at risk all US military facilities...they’re innovating on the fly.”

8. Lebanon Conflict Escalates

• (44:12) Israel outlines plans to occupy parts of southern Lebanon, displacing a fifth of the nation’s population.
• IDF bombing bridges, furthering humanitarian crisis and cutting off civilians.
• Ben (47:31): “If the enemy is strong, it’s a reason to go to war with them; if the enemy is weak, it’s a reason to go to war with them.”
• Israeli objectives and US media portrayal questioned: “Buffer zone” or de facto annexation?

9. Europe’s Far Right Under Pressure

• (50:07) Signs of far-right parties losing momentum as Trump becomes less popular and his foreign policy disasters become clear in Europe.
• Notable quote (Danish MP):
  • “Let me put it in words you might understand, Mr. Trump: fuck off.”
• Italian PM Giorgia Meloni suffers defeat in referendum; young voters, progressives re-energized.
• Ben (56:33): “Trump’s recklessness...is not helping these far-right parties...people can see this is what far right leadership looks like. I don’t know if I want that.”

10. Security & OPSEC Fails: Strava’s Military Dangers

• (61:13) A French sailor jogs on a nuclear aircraft carrier, logs run on public Strava, revealing sensitive location; echoes past OPSEC leaks via fitness apps.
• Ben: “We need to have an encrypted Strava app or something.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Market Manipulation/War Profiteering:
  • Ben (16:03): “I can't think of anything more disgusting than somebody profiting off trading off a war. Because Donald Trump is, like, turning the dial on oil prices up and down with his, you know, false claims about negotiations.”
• On Trump’s Credibility:
  • Ben (11:08): “It’s a sad state of affairs that I believe the Iranians to be more credible than Trump.”
• On Sanctions Relief Hypocrisy:
  • Ben (33:02): “This is $14 billion. This is... leaps and bounds more than the $400 million [we gave Iran for the JCPOA]. It is in the middle of a war... every single one of those fucking people support this idiocy. Support this war.”
• On the Absurdity of Trump’s Negotiators:
  • Tommy (29:47): “Golubov actually is a credible messenger... but Trump is probably kneecapping the guy by talking about him all the time. It seems like the worst strategy.”
• On Information Security:
  • Ben (63:45): “These apps are all...ways to penetrate apps and to communicate, to locate, to disparage...It’s a dystopia we live in.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Pearl Harbor Gaffe/Oval Office Segment: 03:06–04:17
• Explaining Trump’s Iran Flip: 08:15–13:29
• Market Manipulation/Trading Analysis: 15:38–17:51
• Regional Diplomatic Reality: 13:33–18:11
• Iran Demands & Negotiation Obstacles: 24:46–27:25
• US Military Deployments to the Gulf: 36:17–39:28
• Iran’s Missile Strike on Diego Garcia: 41:35–44:12
• Lebanon Crisis Coverage: 44:12–50:07
• European Far Right Analysis: 50:07–60:18
• Strava/OPSEC Segment: 61:13–64:44

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Edward Fishman Interview: Economic Costs of the Iran War

(67:45–84:36)

Key Takeaways

• Strait of Hormuz Closure: Greatest global energy threat in history; about 20% of oil and LNG flows disrupted.
  • Edward Fishman (68:15): “We're dealing with a monumental shock to the global energy system, and there’s really not an end in sight so far.”
• Lasting Damage: Even if the war ended tomorrow, it would take years for Qatar, Iraq, and other Gulf states to restore full capacity.
• Sanctions Relief: Trump administration’s $14B sanctions waiver for Iran is bigger than what was conceded for the nuclear deal — sets dangerous precedent.
• Developing World Suffering: Gasoline, electricity, and fertilizer rationing in Bangladesh, Nepal, the Philippines, Laos, and beyond; risk of famines if this drags on.
• Economic ‘Choke Points’: Iran and China’s ability to shut down vital resources (oil, gas, microchips, rare earth minerals) exposes US economic vulnerabilities.
  • Fishman (84:20): “We need to wake up and start competing with China in these industries of the future.”

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Tone & Style

The hosts blend sharp analysis, dark humor, and blunt criticism, maintaining a conversational, accessible tone while delivering deep policy insight. They lambaste the Trump administration’s chaotic and self-interested foreign policy, expressing genuine alarm over both the human costs and the global instability the war has produced.

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Summary

• Trump’s Iran reversal was driven by market panic and regional political pressure, not genuine diplomatic progress.
• Market manipulation and profiteering off war create deep ethical and legal concerns.
• Any peace deal is hampered by profound mistrust, Iran’s newfound leverage, and maximalist demands.
• Risks of escalation remain high; US military deployments signal preparation for direct intervention.
• Regional warfare and crises (Lebanon, the Gulf, Israel, and Iran) are compounding into a broader humanitarian and geopolitical disaster.
• Trump’s recklessness is damaging the far right’s appeal in Europe.
• Globalization has created “choke points” ripe for economic warfare, leaving the US and world economy deeply vulnerable.

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This summary captures all crucial topics and insights, providing both a narrative and reference points for listeners seeking substance, memorable moments, and context—without the noise of sponsorships or fillers.

Transcript

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Ben Rhodes]

In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security, one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world.

[Edward Fishman]

The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story

[Tommy Vietor]

of the inner workings of the MSS

[Edward Fishman]

and how one man's ambition and mistakes

[Tommy Vietor]

opened its vault of secrets.

[Ben Rhodes]

Listen to the 6th Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Alyssa Mastromonaco]

Quick question. Are you politically engaged and spiritually exhausted

[Erin Ryan]

if you said yes to both? Welcome home. I'm Erin Ryan.

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Listen to Hysteria wherever you get your podcasts and watch full episodes on YouTube

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day or night.

[Tommy Vietor]

VRBoCare is here 247 to help make every part of your stay seamless. If anything comes up or you simply need a little guidance. Support is ready whenever you reach out. From the moment you book to the moment you head home. We're here to help things run smoothly because a great trip starts with the right support. And, hey, a good playlist doesn't hurt either. Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor.

[Ben Rhodes]

I'm Ben Rhodes.

[Tommy Vietor]

Ben, today we wanted to debut a new segment with you called Great Moments in Oval Office History. Here's today's entrance from President Trump. Let's watch.

[Donald Trump]

Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor? Okay.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right, right, right. Is that. Is World War II a sensitive subject in Japan?

[Ben Rhodes]

I cannot think of a more cringe moment. And who were the people guffawing at first, and then when he actually dropped the Pearl harbor reference, like, he couldn't even just be subtle. Who knows more about secrecy than Japan? There was someone, like, groaned.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Ben Rhodes]

Spoke for all of us, I think.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'll be honest. I watched that and I laughed out loud. I was like, that is just genuine.

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, because he's just such a. Of course he did that. Of course he did that. You know, Takechi was like.

[Tommy Vietor]

She, like, literally gasps. She's like.

[Ben Rhodes]

Her eyes look like they're gonna pop out of her head.

[Tommy Vietor]

It is wild. Anyway, that was ye. Yeah. A real winner from our president, you know, just kind of like pinballing through the world, just kind of throwing his elbows at everybody.

[Edward Fishman]

Even like, she's his ally one year

[Ben Rhodes]

and three months into it, Tommy of the second term. But yeah, like, she. She later in the day too, had this bizarre thing where she. Did you see where she said that Barron Trump was really good looking and he clearly got that from Donald. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Creepy. That's weird. Yeah. I mean, it's so funny is like all the reporting on her trip were like. It was like, great success because she avoided a blowup. It's like what I feel like the relationship should be about a little more than that, but you should set a higher bar. Yeah, whatever. What are you going to do? By the way, Ben and I did a bonus episode last Friday for the Pod Save the World YouTube where we dug into the first three weeks of the war with Iran. So please subscribe to Pod Save the World on YouTube if you want more bonus episodes like that. It's also the venue where we find, like, the dumbest clips we possibly can of Pete Hegseth or Trump or whatever, and we laugh at them so that we don't cry because otherwise we do a lot of crying. So when you subscribe to Pod Save the World on YouTube, when you rate it, when you review it, when you share the episodes, it really helps us grow the show. It helps us get good factual information into the YouTube algorithm and displace the pro war propaganda from Fox News in the Daily Wire. Speaking of which, Ben, if you are sick of that shit and the credulous coverage of this war and you want to hear it discussed by people who are not in a coma for the last 20 years who remembered the Iraq war and that it didn't go so well, please consider joining Crooked Media's Friend of the Pod subscription community. It is the number one thing you could do to help us grow as a company. You can sign [e-mail] friends or right here on YouTube by pressing the join button. But our solemn pledge to you is it will never book Senator Lindsey Graham on the show unless he passes a breathalyzer test first. Does that work for you?

[Ben Rhodes]

That works for me, Tommy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Or do we want him drunk? Do we want him to fail? Or pass?

[Ben Rhodes]

We maybe just want them passed out and silent. Yeah, I have a quick plug here so listeners may know my book all we say, the Battle for American Identity is out in late May, available for pre order now. And for Wednesday And Thursday, the 25th and 26th, there is a special discount for pre orders on Barnes and Noble. Nice. And if you're a Barnes and Noble member, which you may be, if you listen to this podcast, you get 25% off. I think everybody else gets 10% off, so check it out.

[Edward Fishman]

Hell yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Also, Ben Rhodes on Substack notes on the stories we tell. Okay, enough plugs. Subscribe to all that shit. We're going to talk today. We're going to try to explain Trump's crazy 180 degree turn on Iran policy in the span of the last 48 hours. So he went from promising basically a series of war crime airstrikes on energy infrastructure to saying talks with Iran were so far along that the war was effectively over. We'll try to explain what happened, why it happened, and then we're going to dig into the details of the US and Iranian demands and why getting a deal done feels quite difficult right now. We'll also cover what other countries in the Gulf are reportedly telling TRUMP Some recent U.S. troop deployments that seem ominous but important to watch. Then we're going to explain why Iran firing a missile at a joint US UK base raised a lot of eyebrows. We'll talk about the growing cost of war and then update on the conflict in Lebanon. Then we're going to look at some recent elections in Europe and explain what they tell you about the strength of far right parties in Europe and how Trump might be impacting those parties. Spoiler alert. Not well. And then finally, there's a little fun story at the end about how a fitness app exposed the location of a nuclear powered aircraft carrier in the middle of the war. Fun is always in air quotes on this show. And then you're going to hear my conversation with Edward Fishman, author of Choke American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare. Ben, we get into all the economic costs of the war, the ways it has exposed economic vulnerabilities, as he calls them, choke points. It's very up your alley, this conversation.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah. Underappreciated piece of how Trump is messing up things. So I'm excited to hear that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, just exposing our enormous weaknesses to the entire world. All right, so let's try to understand the last 48 hours. So it has been truly head spinning. On Saturday, Trump posted, quote, if Iran doesn't fully open without threat the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various power plants, starting with the biggest one first. So again, that would be a war crime. But details, details. So this went over about as well as you'd expect in Iran. The speaker of Iran's parliament, Mohamed Boker Galiboff, responded with, quote, immediately after our country's electricity and infrastructure are struck, we will consider vital infrastructure as well as energy and oil facilities throughout the region to be legitimate targets and will destroy them and in an irreversible manner. So escalation ladder goes up and up. But then on Monday morning, just 12 hours before Trump's self imposed deadline, Trump announced that Iran was getting a five day reprieve from attacks on their power supply or oil infrastructure. Power infrastructure because the two sides were having very good and productive conversations. Now, everyone, especially the Iranians, seems surprised by this claim. But our president elaborated on the talks and much more during press events on Monday and Tuesday. Here is some of what he said.

[Donald Trump]

They called. I didn't call. They called. They want to make a deal. We're in negotiations right now. JD Is involved and Marco is involved and Jared Kushner is involved. Very smart guy. And, and Steve Witkoff, smart guy is involved and I'm involved. We're dealing with a man who I believe is the most respected and the leader. If it goes well, we're going to end up with settling this. Otherwise, we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out. They did something yesterday that was amazing, actually. They gave us a present, and the president arrived today, and it was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money. You know, this is a change in the regime because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems. So this was, I think we can say, Jason, this is regime change, right? We've won this. This war has been won.

[Tommy Vietor]

What about the Strait of Hormuz? Who's going to be in control? Maybe me. Maybe me.

[Donald Trump]

Me and the ayatollah. Whoever the ayatollah is. I said, Pete and General raising Cain. I think this thing's going to be settled very soon. Here they go. Oh, that's too bad. Pete didn't want it to be settled. Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up and you said, let's do it.

[Ben Rhodes]

We see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well. We negotiate with bombs.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'd give you a little bonus Hegseth at the end there, because Trump is setting him up to be blamed for the whole thing. So listeners are probably asking, what happened, Ben, do you want to take first crack at it? You want me to take first crack at it? And then how do you want to go here?

[Ben Rhodes]

I mean, here's what I will tell you, what I think happened, right, which is Trump threatens to start hitting power plants, civilian and energy infrastructure. That's a war crime. We should just say when Vladimir Putin does that, we get very upset, as we should. Then I think over the weekend, people got to him. And there's been some reporting on this, that the Gulf countries whose energy infrastructure would be destroyed by Iran if they made good on their threat to hit energy infrastructure got to him. The markets got to him because he could see the price of oil skyrocketing. He could see futures. He could see the bond markets, you know, going in very dark direction. And so I think he was spooked. I don't think there was any negotiation whatsoever with the Iranians. The Iranians came out and denied it. It's a sad state of affairs that I believe the Iranians to be more credible than Trump. Now, I do think that there's probably a lot of frenetic diplomacy and it's probably all intermediaries where Qatar, Oman, countries that are, you know, traditionally negotiators and are also being walloped economically and sometimes physically in this war are probably trying to go back and forth and get messages from the Americans and Iranians. But I don't think there's some evolved negotiation here. I think Trump climbed down because of the markets and because of what he was hearing from the Gulf. But he had to somehow make it seem like he was about to get a deal. We can get into also the potential market manipulation that went on here, but that statement was for the markets. And his pullback was because people got to him finally and said this would be madness to continue up the energy escalation ladder at the precise time that the global economy is being completely destroyed by this war. And what's happening with respect to energy. I hear that and I hear a man who has no idea what's going on, who has no idea what he started. He can talk about JD and Marco and Jared and Steve and the gang. Those guys have no idea what the hell is going on. The irgc, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps controls the Strait of Hormuz. Not even the Iranian government. The IRGC controls it. Their stuff is getting out. Other people's is not. That is how bad this war is. Donald Trump is losing this war. Not only has he not won it, he is actively losing the war. And so he's just trying to kind of calm markets as if there's not a reality out there that, you know, is not going to bend to whatever his fiction is.

[Tommy Vietor]

And like the end state he describes there is co ownership with the Iranians

[Ben Rhodes]

of the straight, oh, horror movies with the Ayatolls. He talking about the Supreme Leader's, the ex Supreme Leader's son who he was disparaging as homosexual in some bizarre theater in the New York Post the other day. Which Ayatollah is he talking about?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it's like they're talking about joint custody of Eric. Yeah, I saw him do this on Monday morning. I thought this is entirely market manipulation. This is about oil and stock markets. And he woke up Monday morning, Trump saw the European markets were way off, Asian stock markets were getting crushed and he wanted to punt that ball down the road. And so, you know, oh, lo and behold, he announces like a five day reprieve, which is right until markets close on Friday. There are some, as you mentioned, like there's some talks are happening. A bunch of news outlets have reported that Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan met to try to find some sort of off ramp to end the war. Apparently Egyptian intelligence kind of led the outreach to the Iran's irgc. But the, the, apparently the new interlocutor on the Iranian side is the guy I mentioned Earlier, Speaker Gal, who Trump seems to think can be his new like Deli Rodriguez in Iran, which means like, like in Venezuela, a leader that the US can install and control. But that is a hell of a lot easier said than done in Iran. And again of the talks, Golubov said, our people demand the complete and humiliating punishment of the aggressors. No negotiations with America have taken place. Fake news is intended to manipulate financial and oil markets and to escape the quagmire in which Americ in Israel are trapped. That doesn't sound all that hopeful. And again, Iran is talking about hitting infrastructure like oil and gas, but also maybe desalination plants, which we've discussed before. Like Kuwait gets 90% of its water from the sea. Saudi Arabia gets 70%. So that would be a huge crisis. And then just quickly on the corruption thing. So the Financial Times reported that traders made a half a billion dollars worth of bets in the oil markets 15 minutes before Trump's tweet announcing these talks. So 6,200 Brent or WTI futures contracts, those are oil. Oil futures were bought and sold between 6:49 and 6:50am on Monday, 15 minutes before the truth social post. The notional value of the trade was $580 million. There was also a spike right at that time in the trading of S and P futures. And then maybe some sort of like European energy commodities too. I'm sure it was all just a coincidence, Ben, but someone made a lot of money.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, and we saw this by the way before with the tariffs. When he did his climb down after Liberation Day, there was a lot of suspicious trading before that. That made a lot of people a lot of money. And again, like we need to spell this out because this is very plain what is happening. Donald Trump knows if he goes out and says on too social, which is clearly a planned thing. Right. It's not even like a kind of stand up in front of the microphones with the Air Force One blasting away. He knows he's going to post at a certain time and he knows that that's going to bring down the price of world futures and calm markets. If somebody has foreknowledge of that and trades, they can make an extraordinary amount of money. And again, either this is like the biggest coincidence in the world that someone had a premonition that there was going to be a post just like this or somebody KN or got tipped off and did this and I'm sorry, like we don't know. I'm not suggesting I know for a fact what happened. I Am saying this is incredibly suspicious, and I can't think of anything more disgusting than somebody profiting off trading off a war. Yeah, trading off a war. Because Donald Trump is, like, turning the dial on oil prices up and down with his, you know, false claims about negotiations. I also say, like, to the markets, like, which we talk about, like, as if it's a person. Not the best day for them, too, like, that they somehow are credulous of Donald Trump's claims. You know, like, I mean, I know people are eager for this to end, but just because he puts something on too social doesn't mean it's true. Well, the Iranians, you know, it folds

[Tommy Vietor]

into this preexisting narrative, the taco thing. Right. Trump always chickens out, and that works with tariffs and things he can turn on and off and controls. It doesn't work in the context of a war.

[Ben Rhodes]

Exactly.

[Tommy Vietor]

Iran gets to shoot back, you know, so, Ben, before we dig into the substance of the negotiations themselves and why getting a deal will be really difficult. Difficult, I did want to play you a clip from an expert that gave me some hope and some faith in President Trump's abilities. So this is infamous pierogi hater and friend of Jeffrey Epstein, Alan Dershowitz. Let's watch.

[Ben Rhodes]

Had President Trump been in charge in 1935, 1936, I think the Holocaust would have been prevented. I think he would have gone in after Nazi Germany. He would have destroyed it the way he is destroying Nazi Iran, and the Holocaust would have been prevented.

[Tommy Vietor]

Spot the lie.

[Ben Rhodes]

I mean, Alan Dershowitz, his capacity, I know it's Newsmax, but to get himself on television is pretty remarkable to me. I mean, all these Trump supporters, they can't even really, like, defend what's happening. They can't even give a plausible argument for why this was a good idea. So it's all this kind of insanity, like, well, yeah, yeah, but, you know, next thing, he would have, like, prevented the civil war in this country. Like, this is. We are just living with the stupidest people in the world blowing smoke up this guy's ass when the emperor has been revealed before the entire world to have no clothes. You know, I should also add, as a negotiating strategist, when I say to embrace the speaker of the Iranian parliament, if you think that's a good way to get that guy killed, either by the Israelis, who seem to want to kill anybody that could bring an end to this war, as they did with Ali Larajani, or by the Iranians themselves. The irgc, you know, is not going to go along with the Del C Rodriguez plan. They're just not like that is not an option here. Maybe there's some cold peace that can be arrived at. We can talk about that. But the idea that this Delsey Rodriguez play is going to work in Iran. What, what have you been, what planet have you been on the last four weeks that you think that's possible?

[Tommy Vietor]

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Head to factor meals.com PSTW50OFF and use the code PSTW50OFF to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year Offer only valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easier with factor. Okay, so Mr. Dershowitz aside then. So here's why getting a deal done will be very hard. So first of all, Iran doesn't trust the United States and that's clear, right? The Trump pulled out of the JCPOA when Iran was complying with it back in 2018. Last June, the White House was bragging about using talks with Iran as like subterfuge to help the Israelis plan their bombing raid. Remember that whole thing? And then in this most recent bombing raid, the US and before this most recent conflict, the US and Iran came out of those talks saying like these were the most productive sessions yet. And then again the US and Israel started bombing. So they don't trust us to say the least. Second, Iran now thinks it has a lot of leverage, right? Like the Iranians decided that they screwed up before by being measured in response to the 12 day war or US bombing rates or whatever. Now they've decided and seen that they can fire missiles everywhere, cause regional chaos and like truly global economic damage. And that gives them a lot of leverage. And then third, I think Iran knows that if they reach just a temporary ceasefire, there's a Good chance the US and Israel are bombing them again in 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, right? So they want a long term resolution. And so their list of demands is going to be extensive. Some of it has been floated in the press. I don't know how much of this is positioning or people who know what they're talking about versus don't. But just to summarize what I've seen, I've seen them call for simultaneous ceasefires in Iran, Lebanon and Iraq. The US closing its military bases in the region, reparations for damage done during the war, sanctions relief, recognition of Iran's right to enrich Nuclear materials, recognition of their right to develop nuclear ballistic missiles. Iran wants to treat the Strait of Hormuz like a toll road and to charge ships that go through it a fee. So all of those are going to be non starters for Trump, for Gulf countries, for the Israelis, etc. And then you're also seeing like Crown Prince that raw these reports now that the Saudis are saying to Trump, finish the job, decapitate the regime. There's also reports the UAE is making the same case and even considering getting directly involved in the fighting. And at the same time, Ben Trump doesn't seem to have moved an inch on all of his demands.

[Ben Rhodes]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

And so like to your point about the markets being stupid, that to me kind of gives up the whole game because like, what are the Iranians going to agree to now in this sort of like maximalist set of US And Israeli demands that they didn't agree to before, now that they feel like they have real leverage? What am I missing here?

[Ben Rhodes]

I agree with everything you said and what I would add to it is we've made this point that the Iranian response because of what you said, right? Because of the feeling that they did not hit back hard enough in the 12 day war, they that that invited this kind of existential regime change war on them by the US And Israel. They have a clear theory of the case that they need to make this war so painful for the United States and the global economy that the United States won't do it again. And Israel is a different story because like they, they have their own fixation on, on regime change. But everything the Iranians have done has suggested that, that this war has made the Iranian regime much more radical, like much more dug in because that's their only path to survival. They see diplomacy with Trump as something that they can't trust because they've been bombed twice during diplomacy. So they need to achieve their objectives in part through the war. The cost has to be prohibitive to the United States and global economy. We'll see if they can do that. Thus far they're demonstrating that they can and we'll see if they can hang on. And so to that end, anything, they may not want that whole list, right, reparations and all that rest, but whatever the end state is that they agree to probably has to be something that gives them the maximum assurance that they're not going to be bombed again. So things like actual sanctions relief, right, the sanctions are gone. That would be a signal from the United States that this kind of conflict between the US And Iran is over. Like, you're back in the global economy. Like, security arrangements maybe between Iran and the Gulf may have to be negotiated. So anything that the Iranians agree to is going to have to be in that kind of space. The US doesn't even really know what it's prioritizing here. If they want a nuclear deal, they can get one. There was one on the table before this war. As long as Iranians can say they still have a nuclear program, they're just not going to pursue a weapon. By the way, that was the Iran nuclear deal under Obama. That's something Trump could get, but that's about it. I don't really know. The Iranians don't seem to concede. So he may have to talk about Taco. Like, he may have to accept a much more radical government, in some ways more empowered because they've shown what they can do and make concessions to them for the kind of same nuclear deal he could have had without launching this war in the first place. It's crazy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it's crazy. I was talking to someone who, an Iran expert today who has been involved in what are called, like, Track two negotiations. Those are, like, conversations with people who have ties to the Iranian government but aren't a part of government, but are, like, kind of clued in enough that you can float diplomatic possibilities. Right? And this person said that, like, the Europeans seemed really excited about the talks, but the Iranian officials this person talked to were dug in and way more so than usual. This person also said that the Gulf countries, like the stuff you're seeing reported about some of the various Gulf countries, like the UAE, saying, Finish the job. That is 100% true. They are pissed and they are angry.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, yeah. No, I wanted to say one thing about that. The UAE in particular, they. If you look at the Strait of Hormuz, right, what you see is, are these kind of small countries like the UAE and Qatar, they're the ones that just cannot get their energy, the oil and gas out without the strait being opened. And so the reason why I think it may be true that the UAE wants this, you know, finished or in some fashion is they know that if it stops now, the IRGC runs the straightforward moves like a toll road. And so whether they wanted the war or not, like, they need the strait opened and they don't trust that the IRGC is going to, like, let their stuff through Saudis. I'm still like, well, maybe that's true, maybe it's not, because the Saudis have a lot to lose if this War goes on, but that definitely strikes me as true. But I think they don't even know what does it mean for the war to end? And it's probably a version of a frozen conflict. This war is not unlike the war in Ukraine. The US Thought it would be a cakewalk. The US Thought that the regime would collapse, and the first blitzkrieg happened, and it didn't. And Pete Hecseth can talk all he wants about bombs. Bombing gets less effective, not more. I mean, we've hit a lot of these targets. They know that they can weather it. And so then the question becomes, does this kind of just continue until it kind of freezes in place at some point? And you deal with bits and pieces of this, like the Strait of Hormuz? Or does the US Put boots on the ground and really try to destroy the regime, which could lead to an implosion of Iran?

[Tommy Vietor]

Let's get to the boots thing in a second. So this person who is involved in these Track two negotiations also pointed out that, like, Golubov actually is a credible messenger and someone who you could maybe do business with. But Trump is probably kneecapping the guy by talking about him all the time. Right? Like, it's just. It seems like the worst strategy. The. A lot of folks I've talked to did take a little hope or see a little hope in the fact that there's reports that J.D. vance might get involved in the talks. It would be a good thing because for, first of all, it would take it out of the hands of, like, you know, Jared Kushner and Steve Wyckoff, who have proven themselves to be bumbling fucking idiots. But Also, you know, J.D. vance would probably only get involved if it was ready to get over the finish line. And seems like someone who at least has told us in the past that he's, you know, wouldn't want this war to be over, but it doesn't seem like he's really involved yet. You know, you heard that quote from Trump a minute ago where he's like, jd's involved, I'm involved, Marco's involved. Right. So that he's just like, naming everybody while blaming Pete for the war happening. And then Ben, again, like, this person said, the best case scenario might be an outcome where, like, Trump essentially has to bribe Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and get us back to the status quo ante from before the war. We basically saw that process start last week when the US let Iran make about $14 billion by selling 140 million barrels of Iranian oil. So real quick, here's a clip of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant from over the weekend on Meet the Press talking about this decision. And then I want to get your reaction to it because this is a touchy subject in Obama world. Let's watch. Is the president in the process of

[Ben Rhodes]

winding down this war or escalating again?

[Tommy Vietor]

They're not mutually exclusive. Sometimes you have to escalate to de escalate.

[Ben Rhodes]

On Friday, the Treasury Department lifted sanctions

[Tommy Vietor]

on Iranian oil stored on tankers, a

[Ben Rhodes]

move that would effectively allow Iran to

[Tommy Vietor]

get more than $14 billion of oil revenue. Why is the US helping to fund a country that it's currently at war with? Mr. Secretary, again, Kristen, why don't we have good facts here that Iranian oil was always going to be sold to the Chinese. It was going to be sold at a discount. So which is better, Christine? The seven the which is better? If they were if oil prices spiked to $150 and they were getting 70% of that or oil prices below 100, it's better to have them where they are now. And to be clear, we had always planned for this contingency. About 140 million barrels are out on the water. In essence, we are jiu jitsuing the Iranians. We are using their own oil against them. It's a jujitsu move to let the Iranians make billions of dollars to help them fund a war that they are fighting against. You, by the way, speaking of jiu jitsu and planning, Ben, I read, I can't remember where maybe the Times or the Journal over the weekend that the Strategic petroleum reserve, the US one was only 60% full at the start of this war. So clearly no one had done any planning for this thing. What do you make of that decision to relieve sanctions on Iran during a war with Iran?

[Ben Rhodes]

I've been practicing mindfulness.

[Tommy Vietor]

Tommy, how's it going?

[Ben Rhodes]

I don't know if you knew this about me. I got some of those meditation.

[Tommy Vietor]

You're listening to Ezra too much.

[Ben Rhodes]

I've done some hot yoga just so people know because I'm just trying to get more in touch with my body. And so I'm going to incorporate these practices now, but I'm going to do

[Tommy Vietor]

a little history here.

[Ben Rhodes]

The first piece of history is that in the Obama administration, you may recall that as part of the Iran nuclear deal coming into effect and also a prisoner release from Iran, including our friend Jason Rezaian, that the United States allowed Iran to receive $400 million that they were owed. And it's a long Story that had to do with the fact that the Iranians paid for some weapons back when the Shah was there. The weapons were never delivered. A court decided Carter owed them money. Yes, exactly. Anyway, they got $400 million. And the MAGA world and the APAC world and all the Bibi lovers out there online have spent 10 years. I cannot post something online without somebody posting a meme about, like, pallets of cash, because some of the 400 million was delivered in pallets of cash. Now, you can argue about whether or not you like that deal or not, but the reality was it was $400 million of money that Iran was owed under international law. This is $14 billion. This is like. I mean, I'm not a math expert. This is like leaps and bounds more than the 400 million. It is in the middle of a war. It is being given to the Iranians because of the rank incompetence of the Trump administration and launching a war that they clearly thought was going to be a cakewalk and running into a buzzsaw instead, even though everybody could have predicted this, all of the people that spent 10 years, like, clutching their pearls about the $400 million in pallets of. Of cash, I guarantee you every single one of those fucking people support this idiocy. Support this war. Will not trash Trump for giving around $14 billion literal tankers full of cash. And Scott Bessant has had this shtick he pulls where he's the grown up and the smart one who talks to the quote, unquote, markets. He has no. You can listen to him there. He doesn't even know what he's talking about. And when he talks about how we've been planning this for of we've been playing. So, okay, two things could be true here. One is that these people are so incompetent that the only way they can bring oil prices down is to let The Iranians make $14 billion as a starter. Who knows where it's going to go from there? Never mind that the Russian are also out from under sanctions. But let's. Like, the good scenario that Besson says is that they actually planned this all along, that it was part of the war plan.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's like, pissy about it. Yeah, he's like this. Like, he gets busy cadaver on tv, like, getting all mad at Kristen Welker, asking basic normal questions like, well, it's

[Ben Rhodes]

because if they plan for it, you're telling me that you knew the war was going to go so bad that you're going to have to start waiving sanctions on the Iranians in the middle of it. So it's either the dumbest fucking plan ever or the dumbest fucking war ever. Okay. And there's not another option here.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, no, there is not.

[Ben Rhodes]

Sorry, I got the pallets of cash off my chest.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's why I brought it up, brother. Also, the Houthis still haven't come into this conflict yet, so things get worse. One thing we're really watching closely, Ben, is it's just worth noting that a bunch of US Ships and Marines are heading to the Middle east, and some will be there by Friday when this sort of five day pause ends right now. You know, like the USS Tripoli, it's an amphibious assault ship, is on its way from, I think, Asia with 2200 marines. There's a similar ship called the USS Boxer that's en route from San Diego with another 2200 marines. I just saw reports that the Pentagon has ordered members of the 82nd Airborne, the immediate response force, to deploy to the Middle East. That's a reaction force, about 3,000 troops who could be basically anywhere they need to be in 18 hours. So these amphibious assault ships, they are like aircraft carriers, but not aircraft carriers in that they don't have catapults to launch planes off, but the Harrier style jets can take off from them. The F35BS, they can do the vertical takeoff and landing, and then major helicopters like Ospreys work off of them. And more importantly, though, they have a lower deck where you can launch ships, assault ships. So, like, if you wanted to send a bunch of Marines to Carg island, for example, you would probably use an amphibious assault ship like the USS Boxer or the Tripoli. So it's all a way of saying there's just a lot of military assets steaming to a location. And in the past year or so, when that has happened, Donald Trump has used those military assets to further a war.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, we said on this podcast for months, pay attention to the military force gathered off the coast of Venezuela. It was going to be used. And this has eerie reminders too, of the run up to the war in Iran. Because while Trump was saying he wanted a deal, they were building up this massive armada to strike Iran, the largest massing and military force in the Middle east since the Iraq war. Now, whatever Trump is saying about, you know, we're negotiating and it looks great, and the Iranians are calling me, there is a methodical deployment that is going forward that could only have the purpose of supporting a ground operation in Iran. Now, whether that's to seize nuclear materials at Isfahan in central Iran. Whether that's to try to seize Kharg island as some kind of leverage on the Iranians, we don't know. What we do know is that's what these troops do, and that's what this hardware does. And so that's very disconcerting. And one other thing I want to say is that I don't get the sense. Do you get the sense, Tommy, that he's listening to any Iran experts?

[Tommy Vietor]

No.

[Ben Rhodes]

All he ever. He doesn't seem to understand the Hegsack, Rubio, Wyckoff. And the reason this matters is that the mentality Iranians is they're going to fight. You take Cargill and they'll keep fighting. They're not going to surrender. Like, it's like Afghanistan. It's like what we dealt with in Iraq. Like, these are people that are pissed. You know, they were chanting death to America before we bombed their country and killed thousands of them. Can you imagine what their mentality is now? And so the idea that one lightning special operation, like Hollywood thing that Trump likes is going to solve this problem, it's not. I really hope this doesn't go forward.

[Tommy Vietor]

Or if you. Yeah, like early on, Trump was talking about regime change. There's a bunch of reporting over the weekend in the Times that the Israelis and the Mossad had basically sold Trump on this idea that they could foment regime change or maybe use the Kurds to begin a regime change operation. Obviously, that didn't happen. But, yeah, to your point, I mean, Now I think 1500 people are dead in Iran. We bombed a girl's school. Trump is threatening to blow up their power plants. Like, that is not going to lead to an uprising in a way that's positive. One other thing that just was worth mentioning, Ben, because I think this incident blew up in the kind of wonky arms control, like Iran nerd circles that we traffic in over the weekend was Iran fired two missiles at a place called Diego Garcia, which is this joint US UK military base in the Indian Ocean. Neither missile hit its target. One seems to have failed en route. The other might have been taken out by US Missile defense systems. But Iran seeming to be able to target something 2,500 miles away surprised a lot of people because the previous sort of conventional wisdom was that Iran's missiles only had a 2,000 kilometer range, but Diego Garcia is 4,000 kilometers away. And so that led a lot of people, especially war supporters, to say, see, Iran is lying. They always lie like it is an imminent threat to the U.S. this is why we had to go to war. And I think it's worth just offering some context on that. So like, first of all, the 2,000 kilometer limit on Iran's ballistic missiles was one voluntarily put in place by the Iranians. But I think every real like Iran expert questioned it first of all, and whether they were telling the truth, but also knew that Iran could take some simple steps to increase the range of those missiles, like reducing the size of the warhead. If you make the thing lighter, it can go further. They also knew that Iran has been researching space launch technology, which is essentially ICBM technology, and maybe they could use that as a dual purpose. And then finally, if you bomb a country, if you go to war with Iran, they're probably going to do away with some of the previous self imposed limits on their military technology. So again, not really surprising in any way. But Ben, I mean, how big a deal did you think this was?

[Ben Rhodes]

I thought it was notable, not necessarily a huge deal. They're trying to fire at everything they possibly can. They're trying to make it feel like the reach of their weaponry puts at risk all US military facilities within range of any weapon they have. And so this is just one more example of them kind of trying to empty the kit to make the US feel vulnerable everywhere. Now we don't know that this signifies like a substantial additional capability in terms of the range of their ballistic missiles. It didn't make contact with the target either. So to me it's just the Iranians messaging again. And yeah, you're right, they're innovating on the fly. I mean, one thing that happens in wartime, we've seen this in Russia and Ukraine, is that when you're under the immense pressure of an existential war, you just start innovating. You just start trying new things. And that could be what's happening here. It's also the case that I just don't trust at all the briefings from the United States and Israel, including the U.S. military. Right. Because like they've told us that, you know, I think 90% of Iranian ballistic missiles are destroyed in launchers. Meanwhile they keep firing them every day.

[Tommy Vietor]

I was talking to someone who's an expert in this stuff who's by the way, like more MAGA than not. And this person was saying this stat from DoD and the Israelis that Iran is like, there's been a 90% reduction in launches since day one is total. Iran is still firing ballistic missiles. More of them are getting through. They're having more devastating consequences. They have clearly figured out how to adapt to hide them to husband resources and stats relative to day one are just, it's meaningless because Iran is playing a long game. Right. And like, that is what's so frustrating about the bullshit you hear from Hegseth and even from Dan Kaine, who I think is much more like honest and honorable in those briefings, but still is falling way short of where a previous chairman would be.

[Ben Rhodes]

Way short. And we have to name this. Right, because the people in the military don't have to go along with this and they don't have to put out bullshit information because it makes Hegseth feel like he has a more macho Fox and Friends briefing that he can give. It's disappointing to me because I don't know how to trust it anymore. How do you trust people? I mean, Trump said that all of Iranian's military capability was destroyed. We know that's BS but this 90% figure we've heard for a while, what we're seeing with our own eyes in terms of Iranian ballistic missile launches, including against Israel, suggests that that's just not true.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I mean, look, on Tuesday, an Iranian ballistic missile hit Tel Aviv. It caused a bunch of damage, injured four people. Over the weekend, an Iranian ballistic missile hit a town near Israel's nuclear research facility. Iran seems to be doing a lot of kind of like tit for tat strikes. Like if you hit near one of our nuclear sites, we'll hit yours. Like I said, you know, 1500 people are believed to be dead in Iran. The Strait of Hormuz is, is basically closed. Like a huge chunk of the world doesn't have access to energy, fertilizer. There could be a global, you know, food shortage, political instability and starvation. So everything is getting worse. Donald Trump keeps saying, oh, yeah, we have air supremacy. We sunk their navy. Well, you know, we had air supremacy over the Taliban for 20 years. They didn't have a navy there. And what happened in that war? Let's turn to Lebanon then, because you did an excellent interview last week with Kim Gaddis about Israel's military campaign in Lebanon that I think folks should listen to in full. But unfortunately, a lot of what she talked about in that conversation is coming to pass because it looks like Israel is planning to occupy parts of Lebanon. The Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, said on Tuesday that Israel is going to control the territory in southern Lebanon up to the Latani river, which is about 15 or 20 miles from the border between the two countries. So hundreds of thousands of people have had to flee their Homes already from the south. Overall, there's more than a million people displaced in Lebanon, which is about a fifth of the population. And Israel is now bombing bridges that cross the Litany River. I think there's been five of them total that have been blown up. By the way, did you see one of the bridges? I mean, there was a RT correspondent doing a stand up right next to it as it was bombed. The guy was almost killed. It's horrifying. So the IDF says they're bombing these bridges because they're preventing the flow of Hezbollah fighters into southern Lebanon. But obviously bombing these bridges is going to cut off any remaining civilians in the area and then potentially cut them off from food, water, like any humanitarian access. So it will lead to a crisis. And stepping back, I mean, remember Lebanon, Hezbollah entered this most recent iteration of the war by firing rockets at Israel after Israel killed the supreme leader of Iran. As you discussed with Kim, I think, Ben, that the Lebanese government and a lot of citizens of Lebanon are furious at Hezbollah, including Shia, for dragging them back into this war. But they can't do anything about it because Hezbollah has the guns. So, Ben, I imagine it's hard for our listeners to imagine, like wrap your heads around the scale of this evacuation order because we're talking about like 800,000 people to a million people getting displaced in a country of like what, I think five, six million people. And I was talking to a friend with family in Beirut who said that one thing compounding the problem is that everyone is afraid of strangers right now because you don't want to rent a room in your building to someone you don't know who is displaced from southern Lebanon, because what if that person has a connection to Hezbollah or is perceived to have one from the Mossad and your building gets bombed by the idf, Right, like, and so that is going to further exacerbate sectarian tensions. It is all very bad and it's likely to get worse because the Israelis are talking about the Lebanon conflict as one that would extend beyond the Iran conflict. And also, Ben, the press keeps talking about Israel creating a buffer zone. It's like what they're, they're annexing and occupying territory. Like call it what it is.

[Ben Rhodes]

Absolutely. I mean, you covered it. Well, I think what I would focus on is what is Israel's objective here? Right, because there's something, and the Diego Garcia piece ties into this, the Israel and you know, Netanyahu and then all the kind of apac adjacent think tankers. If the enemy is strong, it's a reason to go to war with them. And if the enemy is weak, it's a reason to go to war with them.

[Tommy Vietor]

A really good point.

[Ben Rhodes]

And so let's just look at Israel's track record since October 7th, because what they've done is destroy a lot of things. But let's think about what they have actually accomplished strategically. Right. We heard that they were going to destroy Hamas. They didn't destroy Hamas. Hamas is still in Gaza. They destroyed Gaza. They killed tens of thousands of children. Hamas is still there. Then all these AIPAC types, they can't stop talking about the pager operation. Remember the operation where they blew up a bunch of Hezbollah guys and some other people by infiltrating their pagers? Well, guess what? Hezbollah is still there. Hezbollah is still in Lebanon. Did they solve that problem? No. The 12 day war. We obliterated the Iranian nuclear program. We're back. They keep destroying things and coming back and destroying more things. And so if we just take Lebanon, what is the objective here? Because they are destroying Lebanon. Right. They've got a fifth of the population displaced. They're turning people against each other. The politics are becoming more toxic. They are blowing up apartment buildings just to kill a few Hezbollah targets in them. So they're killing a lot of people there. To what end? And this area that they're occupying, you know, you've got Ben GVIR talking about, you know, a pretty senior minister in the Israeli government annexing southern Lebanon. And meanwhile, the American media credulously describes it as a buffer zone. They're blowing up bridges. Buffer to what? Like, would we be describing if this was any other place on Earth, If Mexico took 15 to 20 miles into Texas or we get to Canada? Because they said if we did that to Canada, I don't think we would just be like, well, these guys need a buffer zone. No, they're sovereign borders. This isn't even the West Bank. Lebanon has had a border that's been internationally recognized for a very long time, and they're basically just destroying that core tenet of international law.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it's a. It's a really bad situation that is going to get worse before it gets better. And by the way, we have not. Like, Iran has kind of blotted out the sun on the show, but. And we have not had time to talk about what's happening in the west bank with this wave of settler violence. It's kicked off since the war started, but it's something we should get back to because it is truly awful and. And worth highlighting. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the necessary tools to claim your domain, build a professional website, expand your brand and facilitate payments, making it the ideal solution for businesses of all sizes. Squarespace gives you everything you need to offer services and get paid all in one place, from consultations to events and experiences. 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Head to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to Launch, go to squarespace.comworld to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.comworld this podcast is brought to you by WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. When it comes to sending money abroad, many providers claim to offer free fees and competitive rates. But don't be fooled. This can be code for inflated exchange rates. With the WISE account, you can send, spend and receive money in over 40 currencies without ever having to worry about hidden fees. Sending pounds across the pond Most transfers arrive in 20 seconds or less. Spending reals in Rio. The Wise travel card gives you the mid market rate on every purchase. No costly markups on your bill. Getting paid in dollars for your side gig. Avoid hidden fees and get the real exchange rate every time. With 24. 7 access to live support, your international transactions with WISE are quick, transparent and safe. Plus WISE runs over 7 million daily checks to catch and prevent fraud. 15 million people already trust WISE to manage their money internationally. Be smart Get Wise if you travel, Wise is a really easy way to send or spend money abroad. You can use it to charge things directly. You always get the best exchange rate. You don't have to worry about getting just taken to the cleaners at one of those Little kiosks where you exchange money. It's a great service. It's super easy to use. You just download the Wise app today or visit wise.com terms and conditions apply. Let's switch gears though, Ben, to Europe. Because we've been watching closely for years now, like the rise of far right political parties in Europe, the trajectory has felt quite bad for a while. Like I, you know, I think we were speculating on the show early on and earlier this year that we could be heading towards far right parties controlling big swaths of Germany in 2026 and then even the French presidency in 2027. That obviously could still happen. But there have been some bumps in the road thanks to our President Donald Trump, because it turns out that trying to annex Greenland is not that popular. It turns out that starting an idiotic war with Iran is not that popular. And here's some evidence for you guys. So the most obvious impact of Trump's policies come to us from Denmark. Folks probably remember Denmark governs Greenland. The Danish Prime Minister Metta Fredriksen called early elections to capitalize on her popularity after she got in this big fight with Trump over Greenland. We don't have results as of this recording, but going into the race, she was seen as the front runner. And there was a great piece in the Atlantic this week about how the far right, nationalist, populist Danish People's Party in Denmark went from super pro Trump to one of its members saying, quote, let me put it in words you might understand, Mr. Trump, fuck off. So that's a bit of a change. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Maloney's right wing government just lost a judicial reform referendum pretty badly. It was 54 to 46. The underlying issues are pretty technical and wonky, so we're just going to skip past them because they don't really matter for this. But what, what you should know is it became seen as a referendum on Georgia Maloney and she lost. And now she's seeing headlines like this one from Politico, quote, referendum defeat brings Italy's Meloni crashing down to earth. Right. So that's just again, the mood music is bad for her. In Slovenia, there was a parliamentary election over the weekend and the center left Freedom Parties barely leading the right wing Democratic Party. But this race has interesting ties to Viktor Orban in Hungary and an organization called Black Cube that is near and dear to our hearts here. Pod save the world, friends of mine. Yeah, so let's put a pin in that one and come back to it. And then finally, Ben in France There were a bunch of municipal, municipal elections. The results were a mixed bag. The far right National Rally Party had some successes, but like every party had some successes. The centrist had some successes. The left had some. But National Rally won seats in smaller towns and smaller cities, but failed to win its biggest target, which is Marseille, which is France's second biggest city. And it's also in a region that is a stronghold for the National Rally and has been for a while. Emmanuel Gregoire, the center left Socialist, he won the runoff election in Paris. National Rally continues to do terribly in Paris. But then, interestingly, Ben, in previous elections, the key to defeating the far right was getting all the parties from the center to the left united in opposition. But I was listening to, I think, this BBC political analyst talking about how in this past election, a lot of the socialist parties fared better if they rejected the far left, because the far left has become so toxic under Melanchol. So it's a bit of a mess. I guess I'm going to choose to take a little bit of hope away from these results while also steeling myself for the reality that an economic crisis or a migration crisis because of the Iran war is the kind of thing that will fuel the far right in Europe. And also, like, you know, these are very low turnout elections, while the presidential elections see closer to 75, 85%. But any takeaways from you based on what you watched?

[Ben Rhodes]

So a couple of small things and then the big thing, right? So on Slovenia, there are a lot of converging threads here for parts of the world listeners, because one thing is Black Cube is this group of former Mossad agents that spied on me back in the good old days of the first Trump term. And I think widely they traffic in these kind of far right circles. So they also notably have done some work in Hungary over the years to discredit Viktor Orban's opponents. And so shortly before the election a few days, a group of journalists and activists in Slovenia did their own investigation and it exposed these Black Cube ties to the far right candidate who was way up in the polls in Slovenia. One of them was Nika Kovacs, who's a friend of mine who's been on this podcast before talking about her advocacy on reproductive rights in Europe. And that did not go over well in Slovenia because people saw it as foreign election interference. A group of bunch of former Mossad people making contact with the far right there to help him come to power. And so you had this surge at the end for the very progressive prime Minister of Slovenia. And you essentially had a photo finish and actually a slight lead for the progressive. Now we'll see what happens in government formation, et cetera. But a significant underperformance for the far right in Slovenia, which is often seen as kind of a bellwether of where politics are going in Central Europe, particularly ahead of the Hungarian election in April. So that's good. In Italy, these constitutional referendums have often been bellwethers. So Matteo Renzi, for instance, was the more progressive prime minister of Italy at the end of the Obama years. He staked a lot on a constitutional referendum to amend the electoral laws in Italy. He lost. And that was seen as kind of letting the air out of the balloon for Renzi. He lost the next general election. Now, Meloni, she had a kind of odd political strategy with this referendum. At first, she kind of didn't campaign that hard for it, but then she got involved. She definitely lost. She lost significantly. And so this kind of aura, invincibility around her has been punctured. And she's the most talented far right politician in Europe.

[Tommy Vietor]

By far.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, by far. And I talked to some friends there who said that in the later last days of the campaign, all the energy right in the streets and online was with the opposition. Suddenly, young people are getting motivated to oppose Maloney. That's a big deal. And so then that leads me to kind of, where are we? Big picture. Well, look, this could still go horribly wrong. They could still win the French presidential election. They could still make gains in Germany, the far right, over time, but we're not seeing that kind of groundswell. Like, even in mixed results in France, people were worried there was going to be, like, this wave of national rally candidates getting elected. That didn't happen. And I think Trump's recklessness and his interventions in European politics are not helping these far right parties. And that, to me, is the headline. You know, people can see this is what far right leadership looks like. I don't know if I want that. And I certainly don't want Donald Trump and JD Dance coming over here and trying to mess around in my politics. Or for that matter, Bibi Netanyahu and Black Cube.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, and lecturing me and, like, trying to ride herd and tell us what to do. Ben, did you see who won the mayoral race in the little French town of Arsi Sarobe?

[Ben Rhodes]

I missed it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hitler. Charles Hitler.

[Ben Rhodes]

What? What?

[Tommy Vietor]

Charles Hitler with two T's.

[Ben Rhodes]

I see that one coming. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

He's an independent candidate who won his reelection over Zelensky. Antoine Zelensky. This is a real thing that happened in France.

[Ben Rhodes]

Did you find this Charles Hitler?

[Tommy Vietor]

I was watching some. What's like French 24, like some YouTube thing, and they did a big piece on Chucky Hitler. Look, what that tells me is dream big dreams, kids. Because most of you would probably think if your last name is Hitler, you can't run for office. But Charles showed the naysayers wrong.

[Ben Rhodes]

Wouldn't you explore a name change?

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, God, yeah.

[Ben Rhodes]

If you're a politician, go with the

[Tommy Vietor]

silent H or something.

[Ben Rhodes]

Eatler. Yeah, yeah, anything hither. Hither. Hither? Yeah, hither's a nice. Or come hither.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, Hank Charles, like flip them around. I don't know anything else. Finally, Ben. So we got a lot of stories, a lot of wars lately, like information leaks. They're flying at us from every direction. Got poor Mujtaba Khamenei having his sexuality questioned, as you mentioned earlier, because WikiLeaks published a report that he sought ed treatment in the uk. The Mossad reported clearly not hims, which

[Ben Rhodes]

has, you know, sponsored this podcast in the past.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hey, Saba, we got you covered. We got a code for you, buddy. The Mossad was hacking Iran's traffic camera to track like the Supreme Leader through Tehran. The White House had the infamous signal gate fiasco. But today's OPSEC story comes to us via a familiar name to longtime pod save the world listeners. Strava. Do you Strava, Ben?

[Ben Rhodes]

It's like you log your dogs.

[Tommy Vietor]

Okay, well you make sure it's set on private because according to Le Monde, a seaman that they're referring to as Arthur went for a jog on the deck of a French nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, and logged his very respectable 4.5 miles in 35 minutes on his smartwatch, which unfortunately was linked to Strava, which was set to public, so anyone who looked could see these little curlicues through the Mediterranean and thus locate the ship. Which is a bit of a. No, no when you have the Iranians firing missiles at Diego Garcia or other bases, you know, thousands, thousands of miles away. This was not the first Strava incident. I'm sure you remember this. We've covered this on the show before. It's been used to pinpoint Joe Biden's travel. Thanks to Secret Service agents working out so called Strava. Heat maps identify the locations of secret US military bases and CIA facilities all over Africa. In the Middle east, they've like the running routes have been used to identify the exact perimeter of CIA bases in Syria and Afghanistan. And the list goes on and on. So just a little advice to Arthur and all the other Strava fans deployed overseas by a stopwatch.

[Ben Rhodes]

So this lit up my Strava group chat.

[Tommy Vietor]

Tommy.

[Ben Rhodes]

I was actually on this right away because I'm a big devotee of Strava. I'm actually here on my kids spring break. You know, you can track your skiing on Strava too. I will show you. All my skiing has been logged in. I got vertical feed. I've got a heat map of everywhere I skied. Thankfully, I'm not in a sensitive military theater. I will tell you also that I know some people, including some friends we have in common, who told me that when you go to these deployments, like in eastern Syria or something, where you're on an airstrip, basically living in a trailer, the only thing to do is work out is to run, quite literally. It's not like a mall. So these guys get in really good shape because they're just jogging around this airstrip and. And the Strava thing is probably the only thing interesting for them, like, you know, tracking their times. Yeah, we need to have an encrypted Strava app or something.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, listen, I get it. Also, I recently became a Fitbit guy. Am I proud of it?

[Edward Fishman]

No.

[Tommy Vietor]

Does it look cool? Absolutely not. Do I find it useful? Yes. So here we are. But yeah, I mean, if I were. Well, it means like, there's still an underlying problem of if you're jogging with your phone, like someone can track your gps, right?

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

God only knows what the Russians are doing. But also, I mean, actually, Strava has got some. Some Russian soldiers got. Got fucking around in Ukraine back in the day before anyone knew about it because they were using Strava to. To. To. You know, I think the Mossad got got too. So I don't know. It's brave new world out there, buddy.

[Ben Rhodes]

These, These apps are all, you know, like, I. I've heard from people in the business that, like, you know, if you want to have a. Like people use a Grindr to like, have like private chats. Like, it's just all these ways to penetrate apps and to communicate, to locate, to disparage, you know, all these. All these things. It's a dystopia we live in.

[Tommy Vietor]

Grindr is one good way to penetrate. Okay, we are going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to listen to my conversation with Edward Fishman. He's the author of Choke American Power and the age of economic warfare. We're going to talk about all the economic costs of the war with Iran, the closure of the Straight or Horus, all the ways it's exposed massive economic vulnerabilities for the United States. So stick around for that. Today's show is sponsored by Strawberry Me. Let me ask you something. Are you satisfied with the current state of your career or are you waking up every day wanting to make a move but not sure how to get there? I mean to talk to you about this. Success doesn't just happen. And the most successful people in the world don't figure it out alone. They have mentors, coaches, and people guiding them every step of the way. That's where Strawberry Me career coaching comes in. Career coaching gives you the clarity, the strategy and the accountability needed to turn your goals into reality. Whether it's landing a new job, advancing in your current role, or transitioning into a field you love. With expert guidance, you'll identify obstacles holding you back, develop a step by step plan, and take action with confidence, knowing you have a dedicated coach supporting you every step of the way. Instead of relying on guesswork or waiting for the right time, professional coaching helps you take control of your career trajectory, ensuring you make intentional strategic moves towards success. Listen, whether or not you've had a coach, everybody's had a great mentor at work who's helped you grow, see the next path forward, the next career step for you. Wouldn't you love that back in your life? Go to Strawberry Me world and get 50% off your first coaching session. That's Strawberry Me World. It's like therapy for your career.

[Alyssa Mastromonaco]

Quick question. Are you politically engaged and spiritually exhausted

[Erin Ryan]

if you said yes to both? Welcome home. I'm Erin Ryan.

[Alyssa Mastromonaco]

And I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco.

[Erin Ryan]

And we're the hosts of Hysteria, the podcast for women who care about democracy, culture and not losing their minds in the process.

[Alyssa Mastromonaco]

We break down the news, call out the nonsense, and spotlight the women actually fighting back on Capitol Hill, in classrooms and everywhere, the stakes are high.

[Erin Ryan]

It's sharp, honest analysis featuring women's voices with humor and zero handhold.

[Alyssa Mastromonaco]

Listen to Hysteria wherever you get your podcasts and watch full episodes on YouTube.

[Tommy Vietor]

Bringing together Marvel's infamous street hero Daredevil and the award winning crime thriller writer Alex Segura. Get ready for an all new addition to the Marvel crime series. By day, Matt Murdock defends the Punisher at the trial of the century. The murder of the kingpin. By night, Daredevil staves on a war of succession. From the throne of the criminal underworld. Will he win out or will Hell's Kitchen finally fall by? Enemy of my enemy today, wherever books are sold. My guest today is an expert on sanctions. He's the director of the center for Geoeconomics at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of American Power in the Age of Economics Warfare. Edward Fishman, welcome to the show.

[Edward Fishman]

Thanks for having me on today, Tommy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Thank you for doing this. So we're talking about Iran here in the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the economic cost of it. The head of the iea, the International Energy Agency, said that this closure of the Strait of Hormuz is the greatest threat to global energy quote, in history. That sounds bad. Can you help us understand what does that mean exactly and how alarmed we should be about the outlook for the global economy because of this energy supply shortage?

[Edward Fishman]

Sure. Well, I'd say alarmed is probably the short answer. The Strait of Hormuz is the world's most important maritime choke point. Before this war, about 20% of global oil and 20% of liquefied natural gas flowed through the Strait of Hormuz on any given day. So that's, you know, two out of every ten barrels of oil. It's a very substantial percentage of global oil supplies. And frankly, we never have had this much oil come off the global marketplace. You go back to 2022, the last time we had a big oil price spike in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We actually didn't even have any supply disruption, but let's say we did. Russia only sells 5 million barrels of crude oil and another 2 and a half million barrels of petroleum products each day. So it's less than half of what's being disrupted right now at the Strait of Hormuz. So we are dealing with a monumental shock to the global energy system, and there's really not an end in sight so far.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. And then I know that Iran's hit oil refineries and gas facilities in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Qatar says 17% of its export capacity has been damaged maybe for three to five years to get it all fixed. That the. There's also, you know, some oil fields are calling enforce majeure on their contracts. If the war ended tomorrow and the Strait was fully opened, how long do you think it would take to kind of fix the damage that has been done already and kind of get us back to where we were?

[Edward Fishman]

I mean, to get to a status quo ante, it would take years. I mean, Ross Lafond, the The LNG facility you just mentioned in Qatar is the world's largest LNG facility. And just so to understand, I mean, liquefied natural gas has become increasingly important since 2022 because Russia, which had been exporting a lot of the pipeline gas that went to Europe, has no longer a reliable supplier. And so our European allies have been increasingly dependent on importing natural gas that's liquefied into a, you know, to a cool liquid and sent on tankers. Well, a lot of that is coming from Qatar. And to your point, the Qataris have said that that facility is not going to be back to 100% for several years. But setting that aside, I mean, even just to unwind the snarls in supply chains, it's going to take several months. Iraq has shut in. Oil refineries have cut back their runs. And these are really exquisite, complicated systems that once you turn them off, they can take quite a long time to turn back on.

[Tommy Vietor]

Now, yeah, I've read that, you know, if you permanently shut a well, it can get clogged. Like paraffin wax can build up. You can, you could take like, you have to blast right hot oil in there to try to free it up. I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I'm regurgitating things I read in the ft. Has any of that happened yet? Have they, have they permanently shut down any wells yet? Or are we still going to get to that point?

[Ben Rhodes]

Point?

[Edward Fishman]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, Iraq had to shut in wells within a few days of the conflict starting. I mean, it's because a lot of these, these oil producers, they had already filled up their storage. And if you think about it, you had all of these tankers that are stranded in the Gulf and they have nowhere to go. And so, yes, you've already had a significant percentage of oil shut in.

[Tommy Vietor]

Not good. So, you know, in the US this conversation kind of manifests. It's often about higher gas prices, right? Like gas prices are up a buck nationally or something like that. But internationally, in other parts of the world, it's much worse. Like, there's reporting about Bangladesh closing universities to conserve electricity. Nepal is rationing cooking gas. Schools are going remote in Pakistan, I think I heard Laos has closed down 40% of its gas stations due to just lack of supply. What other things are you hearing about extreme measures the countries are having to take? And what do you think happens to these countries if this war drags on for months? Like, do they have any other options?

[Edward Fishman]

So, look, the commonality of a lot of Those countries you mentioned is they're developing countries. And I think what that shows is that even in a scenario where you have a significant shortage of crude oil on the marketplace, rich countries are going to get their oil. They're going to pay higher prices for it. In the United States, we're going to feel it in the form of inflation. We could feel it in the form of slowing economic growth as well, depending on how long it lasts. But in developing countries, you actually already have acute shortages to add to your list. I mean, the Philippines has gone to four day work weeks. You know, you have government officials being told that they should take the stairs instead of taking elevators. You have already significant, you know, rationing that's going on in other parts of the world. And you can just imagine how much worse this will get. The other thing just to mention here is the Strait of Hormuz is the world's most important maritime choke point for the energy sector, but it's critical for other industries, too. You know, one third of fertilizer goes through the Strait of Hormuz on a daily basis. So if this lasts for a long time, it could also create shortages in food supplies. You know, you could see significant humanitarian concerns as well.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I want to get to that in a second. But you're, you were a sanctions expert in a past life. What did you make of the United States, like temporarily removing sanctions on Iran and allowing them to sell what was 140 million barrels of oil? Is that seems a little touch unprecedented now?

[Edward Fishman]

Yeah, it's a pretty remarkable development, I think. Just I'm always hesitant to quantify sanctions relief because, you know, what we control is what's permitted, and then the market decides what the actual economic relief is. So the only way to compare this apples to apples to previous examples of sanctions relief is to look at what was permitted this time versus, for instance, what was permitted under the Iran nuclear deal in 2015. Well, in the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, the United States eased nuclear related secondary sanctions. So we didn't actually relieve any of the primary embargo. The United States wasn't buying oil from Iran. We weren't allowing payments for Iranian oil to go through the US Financial system. This license that Trump issued last week does allow the United States to buy oil from Iran, and it does allow Iran to collect payment using the US Financial system. So in really important respects, it actually goes beyond the new, the relief that was offered in the 2015 nuclear deal. So if you just consider what kind of an incentive that provides to Iran, you know, A previous generation of Iranian leaders negotiated away large parts of their nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Well, this current group of Iranian leaders closed the Strait of Hormuz for three weeks and got just as much, if not more, sanctions relief. So I worry that that has really negative ramifications for whether Iran or, frankly, other countries are ready to come to the negotiating table with the United States to try to obtain relief from sanctions or other pressure.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it's not hard to draw the lesson from that example, as you just mentioned. I mean, the conversation around the state of Hormuz is often about oil and gas shipments, and rightly so, because it's like what, 20% of the petroleum products flow through it. But it's also a critical transit point for helium for a bunch of types of fertilizer or many other commodities. Can you talk about what the impact you think will be beyond just oil and gas? Like, why should people care about helium and then talk about the food crisis element of this?

[Edward Fishman]

Yeah, I'm glad. I think those are probably two good ones to focus on, helium and fertilizer, because they kind of affect different parts of the world. So helium is essential for the production of microchips, you know, these semiconductors that we're relying on to fuel data centers and ultimately help us win the AI race in the United States. Well, if we are short on those microchips because we don't have access to helium, that's going to have significant ramifications for the plans of big tech companies to build out these data centers. And on the stock market, Americans wealth right now is largely tied up in the performance of big tech. And so if this lasts for a long period of time and prevents data centers from being built because of helium shortages, and also, frankly, because a lot of those data centers were scheduled to be built in the Gulf region, a region that that's now in the middle of a massive war, where you've had a number of data centers actually attacked by Iran in the last few weeks in countries like the uae. I mean, that could have substantial ramifications for the whole AI boom. It could burst the AI bubble and have untoward consequences for all of our stock market portfolios in the US and the rest of the developed world. I think fertilizer and the ramifications for food, I mean, that has really, really substantial potential problems for the developing world, because developing countries rely on fertilizer coming through the Strait of Hormuz even more, frankly, than the developed world. I think Sudan, you know, which is obviously in the midst of a Terrible humanitarian crisis right now relies on the Strait of Hormuz for over half of its fertilizer needs. So you can just imagine that if this plays out for a long period of time, there could be significant famines that occurs around the world.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I'm horribly worried about this, the food supply shortages. And it's just, of course, the poorest places on the planet will get hurt the most and the fastest. I mean, on the sort of like duality of the point there, you're also seeing these cities in the Gulf, countries in the Gulf take this massive economic hit, like a place like Dubai. Right. It's this economic miracle over the past 50 years. All of a sudden this is a center for banking, for investment, for all these expats. And now people are terrified, right? They're living under assault. There's drone strikes on buildings. They're scared shitless. I think the UAE has knocked down something like 2,000 projectiles from Iran. Do you have any sense of what the long term economic impact could be on a place like Dubai going forward? I mean, maybe it's unknowable, but it does seem like it's been a wake up call for a lot of people.

[Edward Fishman]

Yeah, I think this is a real tragedy of this war because all of those countries you mentioned in the Gulf, including the uae, I mean, for decades they have been trying to get out of this situation where they're just commodities exporters, they're just selling oil and gas, and that's really their entire economic model. And look, many of these countries have had success in recent years, including the uae, in terms of diversifying their economy, you know, moving into higher value added industries, becoming capital providers, including for, again, the AI race, I worry that this war is going to have lingering consequences for the Gulf region. I think, for starters, assuming that the Iranian regime remains in place, which does feel like the base case scenario right now, absent a massive escalation in the military campaign by the Trump administration, there's going to be some level of arms race that occurs in the Gulf region. There's going to be concern on an ongoing basis about the risk of drone strikes from Iran and missile strikes from Iran. And I worry that companies are going to be reluctant to invest billions of dollars to build things like data centers or to open novel industries in the Gulf. So I do worry that a lot of the progress that has been made in cities like Dubai really does hang in the balance right now.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, so look at the US And Israel and Iran have been engaged in, you know, some level of warfare for a Very long time. Some of it was covert action. But then there's more overt stuff, right? Like the Qazim Soleimani strike in 2020 was a pretty severe moment. It led to a ballistic missile response from the Iranians. But at no point did Iran ever close the Strait of Hormuz until now. And I'm wondering why you think that is, you know, sort of where maybe they got that idea and whether you think they might now feel like, oh, you know what? This is a lever we can pull and we might pull again going forward, short of the Supreme Leader being killed.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Edward Fishman]

I think one of the puzzles of this war so far, Tommy, is why is it that the United States seems surprised by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz? And it's clear that there's probably some shoddy planning that went in. But. But to give folks a little bit of credit, I think the assumption had always been that for Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, they would have to lay thousands of sea mines and make the strait physically impossible, make it difficult for any ship to get through, lest they're potentially blow up by virtue of stumbling upon a sea mine. Well, the thing is that the US didn't think Iran would take that step because, of course, if you had thousands of mines in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran wouldn't be able to sell its oil. You know, So I think the assumption was Iran's not going to commit economic suicide in order to mine the Strait of Hormuz. Well, guess what? They found a different way to do it. Just by using these cheap drones and missiles and attacking about a dozen or so ships. They really haven't actually attacked that many vessels.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right.

[Edward Fishman]

They've been able to change the risk calculus of the entire global shipping industry. They've effectively established themselves as this psychological gatekeeper over the Strait of Hormuz. And it's interesting because in some ways, they learn the lesson from America's own sanctions. If you think about how the United States bent the financial system to its will over the last two decades, it wasn't through sanctioning every single bank doing business with Iran. It was only sanctioning a handful of them. I mean, I remember when I was working on this issue in the Obama administration, and we were trying to persuade China to reduce their purchases of Iranian oil. We only sanctioned one small Chinese bank, Bank of Kunlun, in 2012, and that was enough to get all the other banks in China to fall in line to shape the risk calculus of the financial sector. Iran has now pulled off something similar with the global energy industry, with the global shipping industry. And I think that so long as this regime stays in place, that threat is going to be there. And that's why right now they're going so far as to demand payment, demand tolls, basically, for ships going through the Strait of Hormuz.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's really remarkable. And so, look, final question for you. I mean, Iran is debatably winning a war against the United States and Israel simply by closing the Strait of Hormuz. China won a trade war with the United States simply by blocking the export of rare earth minerals that we in the US need for electronics of all kinds, from cell phones to drones. Is this the future of warfare? And if so, are there other Achilles heels you're seeing out there for the US that you think we should be talking about?

[Edward Fishman]

Short answer is yes. I mean, this is why I saw fit to write a book called Choke Points about economic warfare. Living in a hyper globalized economy with all of these sort of single points of failure, you are really handing over a whole lot of economic leverage to all different kinds of countries around the world. We saw last year what China can do when it throttles the global supply of rare earth minerals. It got the Trump administration to completely reverse its China policy.

[Ben Rhodes]

Right?

[Edward Fishman]

I mean, this pivot on China that was ushered in during the first Trump term to be more hawkish, to cut off their supplies of semiconductors, to impose tariffs, all of that right now is in the process of being walked back because China weaponized a choke point against the United States. Well, now Iran has pulled off something similar by weaponizing their control of the world's most important maritime choke point, the Strait of Hormuz. They've completely changed the Trump administration's war aims. You know, they vacillated between regime change, denuclearization, military degradation. Well, now they have one overarching aim that's reopening the strait, which is fighting on Iran's terms. There are many other choke points in the global economy. I think one that worries me, especially now, if you look at kind of the longer term consequences of this war. To me, one of the easiest bets right now is to think that many, many countries around the world are going to triple down on efforts to electrify the economy, their economies, to go solar, to adopt electric vehicles, battery technologies. Well, guess what? China dominates all of those industries, every single one. So even if we're okay at home living on fossil fuels till the end of time, if all of our allies in Europe and Asia completely embrace electric technologies and China dominates 90% of most of those industries. That hands China a heck of a whole lot of choke points that it will be able to use to leverage against American allies. That's not to say they shouldn't electrify. It's to say that here in the United States we really need to wake up and start competing with China in these industries of the future.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, nevermind if they take Taiwan and TSMC and all of a sudden there's no chips.

[Edward Fishman]

There you go. That's another choke point for you.

[Tommy Vietor]

Too many choke points. The book is Choke American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare. Edward Fishman, thank you so much for doing the show. Really important stuff and I appreciate it.

[Edward Fishman]

Yeah, my pleasure. Good to see you.

[Tommy Vietor]

Thanks again, Edward Fisherman for joining the show. And I will be gone next week. Unlike Ben, I'm too lazy to work on my kids spring break so. But I'll see you guys the week after that. So I'll miss you.

[Ben Rhodes]

I'll be here with Alona.

[Tommy Vietor]

Hell yeah. Holding down the fort.

[Ben Rhodes]

We're gonna crush.

[Edward Fishman]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Pod Save the World is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Alona Minkowski. Our producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our associate producer is Anisha Banerjee. We get production support from Saul Rubin. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes. The show is engineered, mixed and edited by Jordan Kanter. Audio support by Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thank you to our digital team, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, William Jones, David Toles and Ryan Young. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Adrian Hill is our senior vice president of news and politics. If you want to listen to Pod Save the World ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events. Please subscribe to Pod Save the world on YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content and much more. And if you're opinionated like us, leave a review. Our production staff is proudly unionized by the Writers Guild of America East.

[Alyssa Mastromonaco]

Quick question. Are you politically engaged and spiritually exhausted?

[Erin Ryan]

If you said yes to both. Welcome home. I'm Erin Ryan.

[Alyssa Mastromonaco]

And I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco.

[Erin Ryan]

And we're the hosts of Hysteria, the podcast for women who care about democracy, culture, and not losing their minds in the process.

[Alyssa Mastromonaco]

We break down the news, call out the nonsense, and spotlight the women actually fighting back on Capitol Hill, in classrooms and everywhere. The stakes are high.

[Erin Ryan]

It's sharp, honest analysis featuring women's voices with humor and zero hand hold.

[Alyssa Mastromonaco]

Listen to Hysteria wherever you get your podcasts and watch full episodes on YouTube.

[Edward Fishman]

With its two juicy beef patties and three slices of melted cheese topped with

[Tommy Vietor]

tangy Big Arch sauce, the Big Arch

[Edward Fishman]

is what happens when you start making

[Tommy Vietor]

a McDonald's burger and never stop. The Big Arch, the most McDonald's McDonald's burger yet for a limited time.