Isaac Saul (20:39)
All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying. Which brings us to my take. I want this war to be for something. I want Iran denuclearized. I want proxies defeated, the regime gone and an opportunity for a new Iranian government somehow paired with a stable Middle East. But my fear since the start has been that the Trump administration lacked a clear plan, clear goals, or a clear off ramp. Even if it correctly views Iran as a global threat. Even if we've killed Iran's top leaders and done serious damage to its military capabilities, the plan we had going in clearly seems to be running into snags. Or it wasn't that well thought out to begin with. On Thursday, I expressed my skepticism about the ceasefire, quote. Worse yet, I think President Trump is still trapped and still feeling the walls as he walks through the darkness, guessing on his moves. I think this war is not over. Iran's control over this economic lever has not been removed and we have not found our way out. If you can even call this situation a ceasefire at all, I'm skeptical it will survive the time between me writing the sentence and it being published, end quote. Pretty much everything that has happened in the last five days has affirmed this view for me. Vice President J.D. vance represented the United States at the marathon talks with Tehran over the weekend. While he was there, President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended a UFC event in Miami, Florida. A lot of political junkies tend to overestimate the importance of these optics. The president could still care a great deal about the war while relying on his team to help him manage negotiations. But Trump told reporters on his way to the event that it did not matter to him if a deal was reached or not. Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me, he said. We win regardless. Yet the negotiation does matter. With talks failing, the administration has decided to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. This means a prolonged naval presence in the region with no timeline and no particulars. Our navy is perfectly capable of executing such a blockade, and analysts believe we'll use the time to sweep the strait for mines and establish a protected passage for commercial ships. Military insiders I've spoken to doubt the US Navy will be seriously threatened by Iran, given how much we overpower other countries at sea. Still, uncertainty remains. What will the US do to ships that try to break the blockade? In the meantime, how will it affect our allies in the Persian Gulf, like Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates? If Iran attempts to attack our navy, how will we respond? Who will help the US Clear the Strait of Hormuz? Who will help us enforce that it stays open? We don't have answers to those questions, but the information we have isn't particularly encouraging. Trump promised other countries would help unblock the strait, but so far, no takers. It's true that many of our allies purport to share our interests yet are in answering the call, but at the same time, the president should have accounted for that outcome by planning the operation in conjunction with our allies. Iran, for its part, has called any potential blockade an act of piracy and said no port in the Persian Gulf or the Sea of Oman will be safe if Iran's ports are threatened. It promised to protect the territorial waters and said no U.S. vessel will pass through the Strait of Hormuz, although the US Said that two American Navy destroyers entered the strait and destroyed an Iranian surveillance drone on Saturday before exiting safely. That all sounds less like progress on a negotiated peace and more like reasons to continue fighting. Meanwhile, it's unclear how long our allies will be able to tolerate a global economic disruption and how long until the plan hits home in a serious way and Iran still has some cards to play. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have both completed bypass pipelines to move oil from the Persian Gulf across the Arabian Peninsula into the Red Sea, avoiding the Strait of Hormuz. Those pipelines are vulnerable targets for Iranian sabotage. The Red Sea also has its own choke points, the Suez Canal, which demonstrated its value during the pandemic, and the Bab el Mendab, which you may hear more about soon. That 20 mile waterway separates Djibouti and Yemen, where the Iran backed Houthis who have already wreaked havoc in the Red Sea operate. Oil from the Gulf mostly goes to Asia, while transit through the Red Sea affects the whole global supply chain. That means we can get a sense of the impact of a potential Bab el Mandab disruption by looking at how the current situation is affecting Asia. As this excerpt from a new Wall Street Journal report shows, the current economic damage for some Asian nations is being described as worse than than the pandemic. Quote the oil shock of Iran paralyzing the Strait, is already rippling through Asia, where factories are curbing production to save energy and some gas stations are rationing fuel. Some airports across Asia and Europe are beginning to run out of jet fuel, and it could take months for inventories to recover. For countries in the Gulf, the economic damage is shaping up to be the worst in decades, eclipsing the pandemic. Researchers at Capital Economics forecast Qatar's gross domestic product to shrink by 13% this year, the United Arab Emirates by 8% and Saudi Arabia by 6.6%. That kind of economic damage hasn't reached our shores yet, but that doesn't mean it won't. Jet fuel shortages, supply chain disruptions and energy price spikes ripple out from the source in today's global economy, and we will probably feel them in ways we may not totally understand or expect right now. If you don't share my opinion that our economic situation is tenuous, listen to the president. On Sunday, Trump was asked in a Fox News interview if oil and gas prices will be lower in November. That's seven months from now when voters hit the polls. I hope so, he said. I mean, I think so. It could be, or maybe a little bit higher. It should be around the same. I think this won't be that much longer. End quote. Confidence. This is not, not to beat a dead horse, but in key moments like this, we need to constantly remind ourselves what the administration has said and, and then what has actually happened. When these strikes began, Trump said they would last four weeks or less. Around the four week mark, the White House began considering a ground operation to take Carg island or capture Iran's enriched uranium. Trump then held a national address on April 1, telling Americans the conflict would be over in two to three weeks. It's now been two weeks since that address. And on the back of failed negotiations, we just announced a seemingly indefinite blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, with the added risk of escalation if anyone tries to stop us. And while we're cajoling our allies into helping, news just broke that China is preparing a weapons shipment to Iran. That kind of escalation is a concerning reminder of the global alliances we're facing in this power struggle. Nobody really expected these negotiations to solve anything substantial in a single day. The Obama era Iran nuclear deal took two years to hammer out, and we're in wartime now, which always complicates things. But the expectation here is necessarily different because the circumstances are dire. The Strait needs to reopen soon, unless we want the global energy crisis to metastasize. And we really need to avoid being drawn into a kind of ambient war, lest we accept our soldiers being at daily risk and our coffers being regularly emptied to the tune of billions of dollars, all while the needle never really moves you. We'll be right back after this quick break.