Suspension of the rules. - The Iran episode. Isaac, Ari and Kmele talk about all the latest on the war in Iran.

Summary

Podcast Summary: Tangle — Suspension of the Rules – The Iran Episode

Host: Isaac Saul
Guests: Ari Weitzman (Managing Editor), Camille Foster (Editor at Large)
Date: March 12, 2026
Topic: Latest developments in the Iran war: media engagement, public apathy, U.S. and Israeli objectives, the Strait of Hormuz, economic effects, and prospects for escalation or de-escalation.

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Episode Overview

The episode delves into the ongoing Iran conflict, exploring why media and public engagement seem muted despite its global significance. The discussion, led by Isaac, Ari, and Camille, assesses the U.S. administration’s objectives, the impact on Americans, and the war’s broader strategic context, especially vis-à-vis China and Israel. They debate the prospects for escalation versus a U.S. exit, analyze political messaging around the war, and scrutinize economic levers like oil and the Strait of Hormuz.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Is Public Engagement So Low?

(01:49 – 14:45)

• Media Disconnect: Isaac references veteran media host Michael Smerconish’s observation that the Iran war isn’t “lighting up the phones.” Neither Smerconish’s nor Tangle’s audience seems as engaged with this war as with past major events.
  • “This is the biggest, most important story in the United States, in my view right now. … Do the people care?” – Isaac [05:22]
• American Insulation: Ari and Camille argue that the disconnect arises because most Americans are functionally insulated from the conflict, both via the professionalism of the U.S. military and through a media class where few are veterans.
  • “We are really, really fortunate to have such a professionalized military that insulates us from these things. But that’s a double-edged sword... we no longer really appreciate what goes in to these military engagements.” – Ari [10:33]
  • “The acute issue of whether or not we ought to be doing this isn’t really something that people are actively talking about … I suspect it is because they forget that the conflict is taking place at all.” – Camille [12:03]
• Public Priorities: Economic realities, gas prices, and daily life (“who’s picking up the kids tonight?”) take precedence over ongoing foreign policy and war. [12:03-14:33]

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2. U.S. War Aims and Political (In)Coherence

(14:46 – 26:33)

• Unclear Objectives: Isaac highlights Sen. Chris Murphy’s social media thread after a classified Senate briefing on the war, outlining how campaign rhetoric (stopping Iran’s nuclear program, regime change) doesn’t match actual operational goals (destroying infrastructure, but not pursuing regime change).
  • “The war goals do not involve destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons program. … Regime change is also not on the list of their goals. … So what are the goals? It seems primarily to be destroying lots of missiles and boats and drone factories.” — Sen. Chris Murphy (quoted by Isaac) [17:18]
  • “If that is the actual goals of this operation ... that does not seem like a sufficient pretext for what this war is.” – Isaac [19:38]
• Mixed Messaging:
  • “President always feels like he's auditioning some new take on what exactly the goals are, what's happening, what the timetable is. There is just zero consistency from the administration.” – Camille [21:08]
  • Ari argues U.S. objectives may be “secondary” to Israeli goals, but that even if so, Washington could have more consistent messaging.

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3. The U.S.–Israel Nexus — Who’s Leading Whom?

(26:34 – 34:25)

• Who's pulling strings?: Isaac and Ari debate the prevalent “U.S. does Israel’s bidding” narrative. Isaac argues that the U.S. likely wants these operations and lets Israel take more public heat, while Ari raises the notion of mutual benefit and blurred leadership.
  • “I actually think that almost the reverse is more likely, which is the United States sees an opportunity for Israel to take a lot of the heat...” – Isaac [27:15]
  • “What matters is that it seems like both countries are on the same page about what's happening…” – Ari [30:39]
  • “[T]his is a mutually beneficial thing for the US and one of its allies, and it kind of doesn't really matter who... raised the point first.” – Ari [31:03]

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4. Strategic Framing: Iran, Israel, and the China Factor

(34:26 – 47:04)

• Geopolitical Chess: The war is also about sending global signals, particularly to China. The panel discusses whether U.S. action in Iran is intended as a deterrence marker for China vis-à-vis Taiwan and the broader “theoretical war” chess game.
  • “There’s a theory here that we are both sending China a message about our military capabilities and also seriously diminishing an ally of theirs [Iran] in this very critical region.” – Isaac [40:23]
  • “If you use that framework… then this move is a winning move on that theoretical chessboard because it makes China less likely to move against Taiwan.” – Ari [43:46]
• Limitations of the China Lens: All agree that while the China angle is relevant, it is not the sole strategic motivator for U.S. involvement.

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5. Oil, the Strait of Hormuz, and Domestic Consequences

(48:19 – 59:54)

• The Choke Point: The Strait of Hormuz is vital — responsible for 20–30% of seaborne crude. Iran’s ability to lay mines and disrupt traffic gives it enormous leverage.
  • “It does not take a lot for them to shut this shipping lane down and the implications of this, of them having total control over it and us not having any kind of say in what's happening…” – Isaac [51:22]
• Economic Shock: Gas prices serve as the most direct potential impact felt in the U.S. The hosts quiz each other on historical and current average gas prices to underscore how sensitive Americans are to price hikes and how it might shift public and political will to end the war swiftly.
  • “If Trump loses control of the prices here, I literally don’t know what happens.” – Isaac [55:00]
• Admin Messaging: The hosts note the administration’s scramble to manage prices and public sentiment, highlighting how sensitive presidential approval is to gas prices.

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6. Are We Near an Off-Ramp, or Just Beginning?

(59:54 – 66:58)

• Trump’s Exit Strategy?: Isaac references Trump’s recent statement to Axios reporter Barak Ravid: “The war with Iran will end soon because there’s practically nothing left to target. …Anytime I want to end it, it will end.” [58:11]
  • “I’m happy to hear that because I don’t want this gone much longer and B, because I predicted it so it’ll make me look smart. But I’m skeptical of it despite wanting it to be true.” – Isaac [58:34]
• Challenges to Withdrawal: Ari and Camille warn that even if the U.S. declares victory, events like an attack on U.S. personnel or further chaos in the Strait of Hormuz could force continued engagement. They compare possible Benghazi-scale incidents and their political fallout.
  • “When Trump declares victory, starts to withdraw, and then something happens at a US base… you don’t control the narrative anymore, and this becomes Trump’s Benghazi.” – Ari [62:03]
• Iranian Asymmetry: Camille adds that merely “leaving” doesn’t mean Iran will cease hostilities or disruption, especially in maritime zones.

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7. Escalation Risks — Boots on the Ground?

(66:59 – 73:15)

• Troop Deployment Speculation: Isaac reports rumors, flagged by security analysts and military contacts, that the administration is considering deploying U.S. troops to secure nuclear material if Iran retrieves enriched uranium from targeted facilities.
  • “I certainly am not holding the position any longer that it’s completely out of the question that maybe we see US Boots on the ground...” – Isaac [69:58]
• Panel Skepticism: Camille and Ari both consider large-scale U.S. troop involvement unlikely, citing immense risks, lack of appetite, and confidence in precision strikes or international deployments over ground force escalation.
  • “It seems exceedingly unlikely. …500 [troops] is just not going to be enough to get it done. …It would just be a beacon for potential attacks.” — Camille [70:16]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Disconnection:
  “It’s about as relevant to my life as, say, a celebrity death.” – Reader comment quoted by Ari, [08:38]
• On War Objectives:
  “Destroying lots of missiles and boats and drone factories in Iran. …What happens when you stop bombing and they restart production? They hinted at more bombing, which of course equals endless war.” — Sen. Chris Murphy (via Isaac) [17:18]
• On Leadership:
  “Trump is not out in the news bashing Israel… because they're doing our bidding, and he doesn't want to screw that up, which I think is maybe smart strategically…” – Isaac [30:09]
• Comic Relief:
  – Spirited debate about paper towel use in public bathrooms and the mystery of missing socks. [78:24 – 86:14]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Public engagement/apathy & military insulation: 01:49 – 14:45
• Objectives of U.S. involvement, Murphy’s briefing, admin discourse: 14:46 – 26:33
• U.S.–Israel strategic relationship: 26:34 – 34:25
• China’s stake, Taiwan, global chessboard: 34:26 – 47:04
• Strait of Hormuz, oil, direct U.S. impacts: 48:19 – 59:54
• Potential off-ramp, withdrawal scenarios, Benghazi analogy: 59:54 – 66:58
• Boots on the ground debate: 66:58 – 73:15
• Lighter moments, grievances: 73:42 – 86:14

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Tone & Language

The trio maintain their trademark mixture of sharp political analysis, insider reporting, candid admissions (“I don’t know what to make of this…”), and friendly banter, each willing to challenge and cross-examine the others. The episode balances factual reporting, strategic analysis, opinion, and comic relief — making complex foreign policy accessible and human.

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Summary for Listeners Who Missed the Episode:
The Iran war, while geopolitically seismic, hasn’t generated public engagement in the U.S., likely due to a combination of military insulation and lack of personal stakes for most Americans. The panel concludes that the U.S. administration’s war aims and public messaging are inconsistent and perhaps shaped by a desire to pursue overlapping interests with Israel (rather than being manipulated by it). They also dissect how the war’s ripple effects — especially via oil prices and the Strait of Hormuz — could jar Americans into caring if the situation escalates. Recent hints at a U.S. exit strategy are met with skepticism, with the panel warning that chaos or unforeseen events could keep the U.S. enmeshed longer than planned. All agree that while boots on the ground remain an unlikely scenario, the war’s unpredictable nature warrants close attention.

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For Further Engagement

You can sign up for the Tangle newsletter at readtangle.com.

Advertisements, intro, and outro sections have been omitted in this summary.

Transcript

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[Isaac Saul]

Coming up, the Iran episode. We're going to be talking about all the latest on the Iran war when we might be leaving the Hormuz strait, potentially. Boots on the ground and a lot of debate about the justifications and reasons. We're still in this thing. It's a very good episode. Hey everybody, I'm Isaac Saul and welcome to Suspension of the Rules. I think I might be done with the good. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, guys. I don't know. Something. Something happened. I got. I do it every day for the podcast and I think I'm just like, good morning, good afternoon and good morning.

[Ari Weitzman]

You don't feel it anymore?

[Isaac Saul]

I'm not feeling. I need a new engine.

[Ad Voice]

I think I need.

[Isaac Saul]

I think for the show.

[Ari Weitzman]

I think we should all just try introducing ourselves at the same time and seeing how that feels. Just introducing chaos. Introducing chaos right at the beginning.

[Camille Foster]

No.

[Isaac Saul]

No. Yeah.

[Ari Weitzman]

I'm Isaac Saul.

[Isaac Saul]

I am Isaac Saul. I'm here with Ari Weitzman, Tangled's managing editor. Camille Foster, editor at large. It feels like there's a lot of news and there's only one story all at once. I don't know exactly what to make of it, but I think this might be the Iran episode. We have so much to talk about. I want to start with this. I had the pleasure today of going out to the suburbs of Philadelphia or just outside Philadelphia to meet Michael Smerconis today, who's a guy in the media space whom I really respect. He has a Saturday CNN show. He does Sirius XM radio every morning. He's very, in my view, like, really down the middle. He's been in the game forever. Such an even handed, fair guy. And it was awesome to get to meet him. And I bring him up because he writes this daily newsletter that's mostly kind of aggregated articles from across the political spectrum that you should be reading every day. I love it. But he has started penning these little editorials at the top of the newsletter, just little blurbs about stuff going on in the news. And he said something in his newsletter today that I thought was super interesting. He said on, he does talk. He's been in talk radio for 30 years. And he said on his radio show the Iran war is just not really lighting up the phones. That in the past, the best gauge for how a story is penetrating is the way it drives callers. And he knows there are certain things he can say on the air where the moment the words leave his mouth, all of a sudden the phones start ringing. And this newsletter was just about the fact that, like, he doesn't feel like the Iran war is actually penetrating with a lot of his audience, I guess in the way that maybe you would expect, given the, I mean, I don't want to say obsession, because there's like a derogatory tone there. There is a war happening. This is the biggest, most important story in the United States, in my view right now. And understandably the media is all running toward it. And he was just sort of putting this out like, do the people care? And I thought it was particularly interesting for two reasons. One, because of some of the polling we talked about last week where it seems like maybe the country's more split than we would expect. And two, because at Tangle, I've just seen not really the kind of engagement from our audience that I would necessarily expect about the war. I mean, sometimes we post newsletters that go up and you can comment on them on the website, and really spicy stuff, interesting stuff, you'll see, get 500 or a thousand comments, and I'm just not seeing that kind of engagement. I'm not seeing it in my inbox. There have been certain big stories that have happened throughout the first Trump administration, the. The Biden administration, the second Trump administration, where I would go out for beers or dinner or whatever with friends, and everybody was talking about the story, and I would think, okay, this is really penetrating. This is breaking through, and I'm not having that experience right now. So before we spend a whole episode talking about the Iran war, which I think we should do, because I think it's the most important story, I'm A, kind of curious if you guys thinking about it, have had a similar experience, and B, maybe how you would describe the importance of this story in your view, like, whether you think it should be penetrating in a way that maybe it's not. I mean, I certainly do, but maybe I'm in my media bubble where this feels like an important thing. Also, I should note Ari and I are wearing the same shirt today, which is incredibly embarrassing, and I'm not really sure what to do about that.

[Ari Weitzman]

We don't like it.

[Isaac Saul]

Camille put on.

[Ari Weitzman]

Tough to have to make that aside in this. In the middle of this really important discussion.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, it's.

[Camille Foster]

It's all company merch. I think it's totally appropriate, so I couldn't.

[Ari Weitzman]

It's embarrassing. I really don't like looking like a company man. It feels terrible.

[Camille Foster]

So now you need a cap that's the same color as mine.

[Isaac Saul]

So.

[Camille Foster]

Okay, Ari, great.

[Ari Weitzman]

Yeah. All right. That's enough about us, though, right? We're talking about why it's hard to. I mean, we got a.

[Camille Foster]

Although that. That actually is a good segue, because I suspect that's probably part of it. Yeah.

[Ari Weitzman]

You know, we got this comment. I was looking at the comments to last week's edition of Suspension of the Rules, where we started discussing the war in Iran and somebody left this message. There are a bunch of comments at first, but there's this one that really stuck with me where the commenter said, it's really disrespectful for you all to start this episode by laughing and joking when we are talking about lives at stake in war. And I felt like that was. I wanted to respond. I meant to, and I didn't. So I apologize to that viewer, hopefully they're still here. But that I think is indicative of this disconnect and we're just modeling it. Again, it is really hard to feel connected to this. This is something that I wrote about in my take about this last week. And frankly, I think we're way ahead of the curve here with the way the media has been talking about the story. Because one B to the story is the fact that the majority of the American population is so, so insulated from it. We have multiple metrics where we talk about engagement on a subject. Isaac just mentioned a few of them. Another one is our survey results. And I'm going to try to bring up that survey that we had two readers after or sorry on that edition when we asked them, hey, how has this war affected you personally? We had a comment that we highlighted in the next edition where every time we do survey results, we take a couple comments from readers and we ask them and we just highlight them

[Camille Foster]

when

[Ari Weitzman]

we just represent the results to everybody. And we were really arguing. This was the majority of our argument as an editorial team the morning of Monday following our edition on Thursday was over this one comment, which was this reader said, I read the news Saturday morning, thought oh, so that happened and have kept forgetting about it since. It's about as relevant to my life as, say, a celebrity death. All of our conversation that morning, not all of it, but most of it, most of our disagreement was about whether or not this comment would be too inflammatory, whether it was rage bait, whether it would drive too much conversation, not a single comment Audrey had to find in I think Blue sky, one person left a comment complaining about that person's remark. Otherwise, I think that just adequately represents how people feel about it. And I think, as I said in my take, we are really, really fortunate to have such a professionalized military that insulates us from these things. But that's a double edged sword because we're so insulated from it that we no longer really appreciate what goes in to these military engagements. And the hundreds of people that are directly involved, the thousands of people that are deployed that are supporting them, and the thousands of people that are secondarily affected as family and friends and other military who aren't directly involved with the operation are the only ones who really know what's happening and can really feel it. And I don't think that's very, I don't think that's great. I don't think that's super healthy. I think we have to find a way to make this feel like it's about us. Otherwise we're going to be involved in these foreign entanglements more and not really have any direct involvement to it unless it's about the price of oil. Something about that feels really dystopian and bad to me. And one of my theories is that that's driven in part by the lack of veteran representation in media, of which we are like also perpetrators. We had a stat where we mentioned how the veteran population or active service members make up about 6% of the US population and it's a little bit under 2% of surveyed media personnel are veterans, which is a really disproportional representation. And I think it goes towards us talking about these things in a way that feels secondary because to the people talking about it as well as most of the people reading about it, it is. And that just like I think that dynamic should be like one B headline news about this. We talk about the war, the actual things that are going on, and then underneath that, Americans don't feel it. And this is why. And if we continue to not feel it, we're going to continue to as a public just feel okay about sending service members in harm's way, doing regime change, bombing targets without really knowing what they are, deaths of civilians, school children. These things are terrible. And without us really feeling it, I don't see them stopping. And that scares me more than anything else.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, I mean you've got a 50,000 person deployment in the region related to this conflict. Certainly some of those people were there already. You've got what, seven fatalities at this point? We saw some reporting and I suspect we'll get into some of the details about the number of injuries in the region as well, which surprisingly high, actually around 140, although only eight of those were serious injuries. It's the human cost is not kind of the front burner conversation most of the time with this conflict. To the extent we do talk about how it is getting back to the homeland, as you mentioned, Ari, it's gasoline prices, it's the indirect implications for the economy. There's been some reporting on munitions and whether or not our supplies are running low. There's been kind of all of the complicated and confusing rhetoric coming out of the White House with respect to how long the conflict is going to last. And I suspect again we'll talk about that in some detail. But the acute issue of whether or not we ought to be doing this isn't really something that people are actively talking about nearly as much as one might expect. And I suspect it is because they're just. They forget that the conflict is taking place at all. But related to all of that, perhaps is just this fundamental question that I keep coming back to as I think about the conflict in Iran is what are the consequences of losing here, whatever the objectives may happen to be? What are the consequences of the United States coming up short and deciding, ah, we gotta pull the plug here. There are no imminent. Even if you accept the rationale that has been than offered by the administration. And I think there's plenty of reasons why someone might. You have to also acknowledge that the imminent consequences with respect to failure in Iran are just not clear to most people. In fact, I would suspect that. I would submit to you guys and to the audience that there are no imminent consequences. There's not likely to be an invasion, there's not likely to be a strike. They don't have the capability to do that. So all of that, I think, factors into why this doesn't take up more space in people's heads than their concerns about who's picking up the kids this evening, the price of groceries, the unemployment rate domestically. I mean, even just news about the stock market related to the conflict is more likely to generate interest in the conflict than the actual details that are coming out of CENTCOM on a daily basis.

[Ari Weitzman]

And it's interesting because all of those things you just listed are risks of being involved, not risks of failure. So it's actually like the more that we invest in trying to win, that's the only time we actually feel cost.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, I mean, I do think that is a really good framework to talk about it. And maybe that's the calculation the Trump administration made, is the upside is so dramatic and the downside is close to non existent or we can't really see it in terms of like the costs on your typical American. I mean, the oil thing, I think, is a live question. Iran does have a lot of control over that. And there could be. And people think of oil, it's not just your gas prices, it's the cost of everything and shipping. And I think there's the international order, international law question, like if we were to back out and lose, quote unquote, or not accomplish our objectives here. And the actions we took leading up to this were wiping out an entire regime, killing thousands of civilians in Iran, destabilizing this entire region, much of which was stable before we did this. I mean, I think that that would impact us and maybe come downstream to your typical American in some ways in the future, either by deteriorated relationships with groups in the region, obviously already there are a lot of expats in the Middle east, in places like Dubai whose lives are being impacted immediately. There's all manner of companies and trade and with like these Gulf states that have relationships with the United States that I think are being impacted. But that is very different from a fear of like, oh, if we lose this war, we're going to be speaking Farsi in the morning or something. You know, like it's, there are many, many degrees of separation. So I think it's a pretty fair point and maybe is why it's not penetrating in that way. Camille, you mentioned the objectives and measuring whether we're failing on those objectives and what that would mean. One of the more interesting things that came out of this week since the three of us were together, was that the White House had to brief the United States Senate on what was happening in the war and what was going on. And there wasn't a lot of talk about this. Interestingly, I mean, there was a little of reporting but not a ton of reporting. And one of the only things that I saw that I found pretty interesting and eyebrow raising coming out of it was from Senator Chris Murphy, who is a Democrat. I mean, definitely knows how to generate attention on social media and attempts to generate attention on social media all the time. So I think there's a grain of salt I would take this with though. I haven't seen a lot of pushback about this, but I want to just share a little bit about what he wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and then get some reactions from you guys. But he said that he was in a two hour briefing on the Iran war. Obviously these briefings are closed to the public, as he says, because Trump can't defend the war in public and there's classified information. But he said you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are. And here's what I can share. The lead is that the war goals do not involve destroying Iran's nuclear weapons program. This is surprising since Trump says over and over again this is a key goal. But then of course, we already know airstrikes can't wipe out the nuclear material they confirm regime change is also not on the list of their goals. So they're going to spend hundreds of billions of your taxpayer dollars, get a whole bunch of Americans killed and a hard line regime, probably more hardline and anti American, will still be in, in charge. So what are the goals? It seems primarily to be destroying lots of missiles and boats and drone factories in Iran. The Question that stumped them. What happens when you stop bombing and they restart production? They hinted at more bombing, which of course equals endless war. He also added that on the Strait of Hormuz, they had no plan. He said, I can't get into more detail about how Iran gums up the Strait, but suffice it to say, they don't know how to get it safely back open again. I've not seen the administration respond directly to this, so I'm not 100% sure what to make of it. And knowing Chris Murphy, maybe some of this is a little bit. I don't know, lacks some context or something. But, I mean, if that is the actual goals of this operation, to just destroy some of the Iranian military infrastructure, that does not seem like a sufficient pretext for what this war is, which is hundreds of billions of dollars, already a half dozen dead American soldiers, and destabilizing parts of this region that were previously pretty stable. I don't know, you maybe can sell me a bit on nuclear proliferation. Preventing Iran from getting a bomb, standing up for the Iranian people and the Iranian liberation movement and taking this regime out. I mean, those are the kinds of things that at least I'm interested in and want to see happen. So the cost of the war maybe becomes a little more clear to me. But, yeah, I don't really know what to do with this. If this is actually how the administration is talking about this behind closed doors, that seems pretty wild to me.

[Camille Foster]

Well, I mean, one thing we know for sure is that when the President and various other administration officials have gone out and talked about the objectives in public, they've said all of the things that Murphy alluded to them not saying are part of the objectives. They certainly say outside that they are concerned about nuclear proliferation, that they plan to stop it. The President has said that he wants. I think the phrase that was used in the press briefing recently was complete. A total surrender that the President of the United States is going to decide who is an appropriate leader for Iran. So that does sound explicitly like regime change as a standard. But the fact is that what the administration wanted here was a conflict that would look a lot more like Venezuela, where you could go and quickly achieve your outcome, hopefully in a single night, maybe a couple, if necessary. They wanted something like Midnight Hammer, where it's just a day, couple of places, and you've got success. And instead, the longer this drags on, the more the other attributes of the Trump administration come into play. The fact that there does seem to be a really poor quality strategy with respect to messaging, a really obvious lack of coherence with respect to the specific objectives. And the President actually has been out there on the road talking about Iran and giving interviews, countless interviews, really, since the beginning of the conflict. And the challenge is it always feels like he's auditioning some new take on what exactly the goals are, what's happening, what the timetable is. There is just zero consistency from the administration. So I suppose the most generous way to interpret Murphy's post is this is yet another audience getting yet another conflicting report on exactly what the objectives are, rather than those things not necessarily being the objective. And that is me being kind of maximally generous to the administration here.

[Ari Weitzman]

Well, I think you could be a little more generous maybe in one way, which I kind of, I hesitate to do this, but I think we gotta do this, which is, I think there's a framework of looking at this where the US Is involved in a way where they coherently don't really have objectives, because we are second fiddle because we are there to support Israel and their objectives. So you can, if you're trying to like, I mean, that's both, like, really cynical and opens the door to a lot of conspiratorial thinking about the way that Israel supposedly controls the agenda of the US Government, which I don't believe. But at the same time, it is pretty easy to see a kind of quid pro quo quill here where the US has been under the Trump administration, pretty unilateral in its support for Israel with their war in Gaza. And at the same time, Israel is saying, look, we know Iran's your enemy, the enemy of my enemy, or the enemy of my friend is my enemy. So we can do each other solid here. We're going to go in and we want to remove Israel, we want to remove the nuclear deterrent from Iran. We want to take that off the table. That does not have to be your concern. United States just back us up with more guns, more weapons, more troops, do some heavy hitting. And it will be Israel's objective to get rid of the nuclear weapons program. It will be Israel's objective to manage regime change. And if you think of it that way, all of the answers can kind of make sense because the United States doesn't really have objectives here, and they also can't really say that's what they're doing if that's what they're doing. But under that framework, a lot of the pieces kind of fit to me and I don't really know how to respond to that if that's the case because one, I'm just reading into a lot of stuff, so I don't want to think about things that may or may not actually be driving decision making behind the scenes. And then when you do that, you sort of. Now we're speaking in whispered tones about Israel, which also has a lot of heavy implications that Isaac is very well aware of. But at the same time, like, it does make the pieces fit. So could that kind of be the answer here?

[Camille Foster]

They could at least have the messaging still be consistent, even if they were taking cues from other people and didn't plan to actually abide by any of that messaging. I think the hammer blow to that particular conspiracy theory, at least as a response to. And I think just. I'm not saying you were offering a conspiracy theory. To be very clear, this is suspension of the rules. We're all friendly here. But that is often offered by people who are essentially pushing the conspiracy theory. The hammer blow here is to acknowledge that the actual messiness of the narratives is the problem. And one could have a coherent message and still be kind of serving someone else's means. I think the reality is that they just don't quite know what they're doing and in many instances are kind of responding to the news and the mood of the moment than they really are responding to anything else. Sometimes it seems like the president's primary motive when he goes out and makes statements on the conflict is to give strength and confidence to the stock market. This will be all over soon. There's not much to worry about. And in other times, it seems like it's responding directly to some of the critics of the conference conflict. And I think that that's just a real challenge for them.

[Ari Weitzman]

But I think that's saying they don't know what they're doing with regards to messaging, which is fair. But I don't want to conflate that with they don't know what they're doing with regards to their objectives and why they're getting into it because it's just

[Camille Foster]

not clear what they are. But sure, right.

[Ari Weitzman]

So we're trying to, like, pick apart the pieces here and say what they are. And I'm just offering. And I really don't think it's too conspiratorial. I'm offering the read that it's possible the United States objective is to be secondary in the mission of one of its allies in the region that's taking on kind of the brunt of what the risks could be.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah. I mean, to that point, Ari, I would Say, I mean, I followed a lot of the discourse obviously around, is Trump just doing Israel's bidding? And it's becoming this meme online that, like, he's in Bibi Netanyahu's pocket. And this is all just because Israel is telling us what to do and calling all the shots. I actually think that almost the reverse is more likely, which is the United States sees an opportunity for Israel to take a lot of the heat and a lot of the focus and a lot of the blame for something that they want to be done, and many administrations have wanted to be done, and that this is an opportunity for them to sort of go at it with somebody, a partner who they know will both literally take on more fire on the ground, but also in the more like, figurative media centric space, like, Israel is going to get hit harder on the international stage politically for being involved in this. And I don't know why that isn't more talked about. I mean, we, you know, there are many, many instances where the United States takes particular military action that is supported wholeheartedly by, you know, NATO leaders or, you know, the top, most important influential leaders in the European Union and the leaders of, like, Germany and France and even Canada. They'll just step into the background and let us do our thing and won't come to our defense when we're getting crushed by the international commentariat about some military action we took, even though they want us to be doing it. And it's better for them to just kind of stay quiet. And I think there's a lot of people in the Trump administration and there's been a lot of people in consecutive administrations, including the Biden administration and even in the Obama administration who would have loved to have decapitated the Iranian regime or whatever we're calling it now. That, like, that is something these guys raise hell in the Middle east for us. It's not like a, you know, it's not some, like, small thing that their proxies are regularly dusting up little wars all across the Middle east or bombing US Military bases or walking into major cities with suicide bombs fighting UTI rebels.

[Ari Weitzman]

Right?

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah. Like, this is, this is real stuff. So I am almost, I am less, I buy less that we are. Donald Trump is somehow being puppeteered by Israel. First off, Israel was all powerful and so good at this. And whatever, they would have gotten Obama to do it, they would have gotten Biden to do it. Biden was basically in a vegetative state the last two years in his presidency. They couldn't get him to do what they want. How do you say that? And then, like, oh, they're railroading Trump, and this is proof of how powerful and, you know, manipulative Israel is. I'm like, I think they would have probably had some success in any of the last three administrations doing this if that was the case. Like, no, I think the US Wants this to happen, and it's good for them that Israel is taking the brunt of the blame and also is on the front lines of the war, literally. Their soldiers, their technology, they're the ones whose skies are being filled with Iranian missiles. That seems way more plausible to me. And that's probably why Trump is not out in the news bashing Israel and bashing Netanyahu and not distancing himself from them or saying all the things all these people want to hear him say to prove that he's not doing their bidding is because they're doing our bidding, and he doesn't want to screw that up, which I think is maybe smart strategically, in some sense, through a lens where you want this kind of thing to happen.

[Ari Weitzman]

I think first impressions last. And the way that this war was messaged within the opening hours from Secretary of State Marco Rubio was that this was an imminent threat because we're clued into Israel about to attack. So since Israel was going to attack, there was a threat against the United States and counterattack, so we had to act, which does imply that Israel's the one leading here. But even in that telling and with your point of view, I think both of those things are really compatible, which is that this is a mutually beneficial thing for the US and one of its allies, and it kind of doesn't really matter who in some meaning, raised the point first. I think what matters is that it seems like both countries are on the same page about what's happening, and it checks. It creates this kind of nexus for these three perspectives we're talking about. That explains a lot. Like, Camille started by saying that this is a war where it doesn't feel like we have direct stakes. What are we losing? And when you think back to other wars that the US has been involved in abroad, an easy example to draw. And I'm going to get so much flack for making this comparison, but to World War II, narrowly, narrowly, is that that was involving immediate threats to US Allies and their land and sovereignty. So if you think Israel has threats to their land and sovereignty in the shape of Iran, which they do, the US has stakes in wanting to go to war for their allies. And whoever Came up with the idea first in some room. It seems like both countries want that. And that kind of makes sense to me. Do you think that's too conspiratorial to say?

[Isaac Saul]

No, I mean, I would just say, like, just to go back to Marco Rubio's comments, him saying, oh, there was, you know, the imminent threat was that Israel was about to strike Iran, and we were worried about Iran retaliating, so we conducted these strikes. Like, the obvious point about that is we didn't ask Israel not to do it. We didn't try to stop them, which is my point. Like, it's there. We're like, okay, yeah, go ahead, actually, we'll join you. Like, that's not being puppeteered by Israel. That's taking a lay of the land and saying, like, okay, we want the same thing they want. And they're telling us they're willing to put their guys on the line to do it. Like, sure, we'll push some chips in the table and, like, ride with you guys for a little bit and we'll see how it plays out. And then the first 24 hours operationally seem to go extraordinarily well, because you basically kill the entire regime on this insane intelligence you have, and you do it in one strike or whatever. Of course, you stay in it for a couple weeks. I mean, I just think that telling of the events to me seems way, way, way more plausible than Trump is doing something against his will and the whole administration's getting bulldozed by Israel. It's like, no, they want this. That's why it's happening. And we could have stopped it before it happened if we wanted to, but instead we decided to go all in on it. That's just my read. And I wish I had said that initially after the Marco Rubio comments had come out, because I was thinking it, but I wasn't totally seeing how his words were being processed by so many people. I mean, I thought it was a flimsy excuse for an imminent threat, but not because I thought Israel was in control of the situation or whatever. Just because I think it's a very circular way to use logic to bomb a country. But again, they could have said, don't do that, but they didn't opt to do that.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, weirdly, I think Caracas does more to explain what's going on here than anything happening in Jerusalem. The success the Trump administration has had in the foreign policy domain gave them the confidence to believe that they could have a kind of opportunistic victory here in Iran. As well. And at least that's my own kind of reading the tea leaves examining what's going on. I would agree with a lot of what you were just outlining there, Isaac. I am curious though, if you think that Murphy's appraisal holds water. It does feel like the administration does have some objectives, even if they've been somewhat inconsistent in the way that they've described them, that there is at least some idea of what victory looks like in their minds. I do think that they also have a clear sense that they may need to pull the plug early if things start to go sufficiently badly.

[Isaac Saul]

We'll be right back after this Quick break.

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[Isaac Saul]

Interestingly, I think we're getting some public reporting that does kind of affirm his view. I mean, I would say, I don't know that this is the perspective the Trump administration would have given in a closed door hearing a day into the war. I think then they were probably feeling really good about what was happening. But I mean, I've seen some reporting. For instance, there's a reporter, Joyce Caram, who's also, I think she's a professor at GW or something like that, who does a lot of reporting in the Middle east and was basically saying Israel's view now on the Iran war is that regime change isn't an option. The protests didn't mobilize the way that they thought they would after the regime collapsed and bringing the Kurds in is too dangerous. So basically they're gonna escalate strikes until Trump can find a quote unquote elegant exit out of the war. And this is like her reporting, she's one reporter. It doesn't mean it's necessarily true, but I think it lines up with the kind of message that Chris Murphy received, Senator Murphy received in this closed door hearing, which is like we're not pursuing regime change. Which I mean should be said is like, okay, well you just killed the whole regime. So I don't know, like if you weren't pursuing regime change, why did you do that? And, and maybe like you're just saying emptying. Sure. But like you're so you're the perspective now, I guess is we don't care who comes into power. Which is, I mean, to me that's what it means. Even though a week ago Trump said the worst case scenario is that a similar person as Khomeini comes into power. Now they're saying, you know, maybe regime change isn't necessarily the option or isn't the goal here. There's also this whole China element of it, which we haven't really talked about on the show, but I mean, in very, very basic layman terms. First of all, let me preface this by saying this is super interesting to me. I've talked a lot about living in Israel when I was out of college and during the war in Gaza and everything that's happened the last few years. I've referenced that time a lot. I was actually in Israel to work for a professor. I took an internship there, a writing internship there at a now, I think, now defunct journal called the Interdisciplinary Journal of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Id. James is what it was called. And I was reading at that time tons of these academic interesting papers about the intersection of the Middle east and Asia and especially about China. And this was 10 or 15 years ago, and sort of what China was doing in the Middle east, in Israel, in Iran, in Egypt, in Jordan, how it was kind of positioning itself, what its plans were. And 10 or 15 years later, a lot of the things these academics are writing at that time have kind of come to fruition. One of them being China has become reliant in some sense on this economic and trade relationship with Iran and Iranian oil and view them as like an ally, obviously, in the global axis of power. And so there's a theory here that we are both sending China a message about our military capabilities and also seriously diminishing an ally of theirs in this very critical region. And we're screwing with their economy by reducing the amount of oil that they could potentially get. China being China, there's been all this reporting that they stockpiled their oil and now they're getting oil out of the Strait of Hormuz anyway. So it hasn't really impacted them that much because they're a global power with many different options and levers to pull, and they're just kind of figuring it out. But I do think that that's a, I don't know that the administration is focused on that so much, but I'm sure they don't mind the sort of ramifications of that and what it might mean in terms of A, showing off our military might and B, being disruptive to China in a way that gives us some sort of negotiating chip in whatever the next wave of deals we're trying to broker with them and diplomacy we're navigating. So for me, it's A sort of full circle moment. This was like one of the first things I did as an intern after college. And now this sort of intersection of China and the Middle East, Asia and the Middle east is becoming very, very important again. So, you know, again, I don't know what to make of Chris Murphy's explication of the testimony that he heard. But I have not heard the administration shoot it down. And I haven't heard any other Democrats come out and say this is BS I've seen a lot of them sharing it. So I'm sort of leaning towards taking some of it at face value that maybe this is what they're framing as their plan now. Like, we're just going to destroy as much of their missile firing capability and military depots as we can. And if we leave with that and no more Khomeini, then that's a win. And I guess that'll be something Trump will have to sell to the public, those of us who are paying attention. I suppose

[Ari Weitzman]

there's a framework that I really, I guess I like. I don't love saying this, but I think it's a useful framework, which is that for the last 20 years, the United States has been at war with China. It's just been a theoretical war where both sides are positioning forces and calculating war games and saying what odds of victory and losses are, and then making mutual decisions not to fight a war because they understand what the outcome will be before it happens. And the centerpiece of that has and will be Taiwan. Where China claims Taiwan, they think it's part of their country. Taiwan very interestingly claims China as part of their country, which is great. And I think it's really worth reading about the history between Taiwan and China. But the United States clearly has an ally and a strategical and a strategic interest in Taiwan as part of the first island chain of defense. So that's a centerpiece, and it's a very hard island to take by force. China knows that. They also know that demographically, they're losing a lot of youth. Like their country is getting older and isn't replenishing its population. So there's this theory that in the next five to seven years, that's China's window for Taiwan, if they're ever going to do it. And the US And China are just playing this game of chess. And as part of that calculation, China's trying to ascertain what the chances of the United States responding militarily would be if China were to move on Taiwan. And those chances of intervention just went up. In their models. So if that's the war that we're fighting and that is the war we've been fighting theoretically, just on a chessboard somewhere, then this move is a winning move on that theoretical chessboard because it makes China less likely to move against Taiwan. If you use that framework of the geopolitical conflict that exists in the world, is the United States versus Taiwan, or, sorry, is the United States versus China, then it's really easy to use that to understand things that don't make sense. I think there's lots of other things at play. I don't necessarily buy that that is the motivating principle behind the United States joining Israel and striking Iran. I agree with you, Isaac, that I think that's something that the United States likes, that they get that benefit. But I would really have a hard time believing that that framework of this is the one war, this theoretical war with China, and everything that we do has to be motivated by how it fits in. That theoretical conflict guides every decision that the administration makes. I haven't seen enough corroborating evidence to show that to be the case, but I do think it's useful to think about how the military and the US Military positions itself accordingly, knowing that their war games are indicating what would happen in this potential conflict and that China is too. And in that regard, yeah, I think this is a winning move. But to your point, probably not the motivating reason behind it.

[Isaac Saul]

We'll be right back after this quick break.

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[Ari Weitzman]

Okay, I have to tell you, I was just looking on ebay, where I go for all kinds of things I love. And there it was, that hologram trading card. One of the rarest.

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[Camille Foster]

Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams.

[Ari Weitzman]

One of a kind.

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Ebay had it.

[Camille Foster]

And now everyone's asking, ooh, where'd you

[Isaac Saul]

get your windshield wipers? Ebay has all the parts that fit my car.

[Camille Foster]

No more annoying, just beautiful. Millions of finds, each with a story. EBay, things people love.

[Isaac Saul]

Really quick. I think we have to talk about the Strait of Hormuz stuff. This is, I think, now becoming a kind of a live issue because it's going to impact Americans directly. It's becoming like a strategic choke point to maybe have a little bit of a double entendre in the war. It is both a piece of leverage and a choke point that Iran has on the rest of the world. And like a literal physical choke point point in global shipping to do the 101 really quick. This is a shipping route, a lane of water that is now responsible for 20 to 30% of all seaborne crude oil in the world. And Iran, for the most part, has control over it. And the US Is now trying to stop them from placing all manners of explosive devices and mines across this body of water. I saw a Fox News report today that 16 Iranian ships were destroyed. Some of them are, you know, these small little motorboats that they're going out there with and trying to strategically place these mines as deterrence to people who want to come through. And because of the size of the Strait of Formers, they're able to actually exert a great deal of power over it, even though a country like the United States or Israel might have more military might. First of all, I'll give you. This is one of my pop quizzes for the day. Do either of you have any idea, at its narrowest point, without Googling this, how wide the Strait of Hormuz is? If you had to guess

[Ari Weitzman]

for some reason, I have this kind of stored in my mind in kilometers. So I'm going to try to do a conversion. I think about 12 miles. 12 to 15 miles.

[Isaac Saul]

Camille, do you have a guess yourself?

[Camille Foster]

I mean, 12 to 15 miles sounds close. I might actually even go lower than that, but I'm not sure how much lower. So I'm going under ari here.

[Isaac Saul]

It's 39 km, 21 nautical miles at its widest or at its narrowest. Excuse me. And the. Or no, I'm sorry. Oh, maybe I read this wrong. Oh, no, yeah. At its narrowest, the waterway is about 21 nautical miles. Right. It's hard for me to imagine a body of water that's 21 miles wide at its narrowest being really easy to defend. But I suppose compared to great oceans and seas and the other things that exist in the Gulf, that's quite small. I'm really interested in the question of how long Iran can kind of keep this up. And I've read nothing that indicates they won't be able to do it for a very long time. Basically, every security expert I've spoken to or emailed or texted or am reading has said it does not take a lot for them to shut this shipping lane down and the implications of this, of them having total control over it and us not having any kind of say in what's happening. I don't want to say the administration didn't plan for it because I don't know whether they planned for it or not. But they certainly seem to be improvising now about how to navigate that. I mean Germany and Japan are releasing oil reserves. Trump and the Trump administration. There's been all kinds of reporting from places like Axios and the New York Times that they're now turning over every rock to figure out how to keep oil prices steady and keep the price of gasoline in the United States down. Which brings me to my second pop question of the day, which is a two parter actually. The first one is if either of you would take a stab at the AAA average gas price, what you think the highest gas price was during the Biden administration in 2022, which as far as I know is the highest gas price of all time. If you had to peg a guess on what that price actually was, the average gas price, not the highest price in the country, but the average price of gasoline at the peak during the Biden administration.

[Camille Foster]

Well, in my defense, I have two electric vehicles and have for a while now, so I'm not tracking that closely. But I do see the signs. I also live in California where our average price is astronomical as compared to the rest of the country. But I think the number is somewhere between 450 and 550.

[Ari Weitzman]

I want to ask a couple seeding that I'm going to be really bad at this one. I want to ask a couple of clarifying questions that are maybe just be useful installing which is are we talking about like what grade of gasoline?

[Isaac Saul]

Regular, unleaded Gasoline?

[Ari Weitzman]

Yeah, but like 89, 93. Like premium. Yeah, sorry. I mean come on. Well, are we like mixing, are we saying it's an average? Because when we took our metrics, regular,

[Isaac Saul]

not not mid grade, not premium, not diesel, just regular gasoline. Regular.

[Ari Weitzman]

I'm going to go 479. It's the highest average price.

[Isaac Saul]

It was $5.01 in June of 2022, which is, I mean it's genuinely astronomical that that was the average price of a gallon of gasoline, diesel at that time was $5.81 per gallon. And then perhaps without looking, if you had to guess what the average price of a gallon of gasoline was Today, right here, as we sit here on March 11th, regular unleaded gasoline. What would be your stab at that?

[Ari Weitzman]

I'm pretty sure we're behind.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, I think we're a little higher than that. I think we're getting close.

[Ari Weitzman]

I think it was higher, and then I kind of dipped back down.

[Isaac Saul]

Today, it's $3.57. Oh, wow. Which I think is actually the highest it has gotten under the Trump administration.

[Ari Weitzman]

There wasn't like a moment where I thought there was a day where it kind of spiked in the afternoon, and then it came back down.

[Isaac Saul]

There was that insane oil spike that happened. That is true. And I don't know how that imminently impacted the price of gasoline all across the country, but $3.57 is not cheap. It was $3.20 a week ago. A month ago, it was $2.93. A year ago. At this time, it was $3. And we've had some spurts where it was under three bucks for extended periods of time. I bring all this up just to say this feels like the kind of leverage point that a regime, whatever regime, whoever is running Iran right now, because I'm honestly not really sure, is going to be able to very much maximize if Trump loses control of the prices here, I literally don't know what happens. I mean, I think Americans will tolerate it for a couple weeks, but not for a couple months. I think one thing maybe the Biden administration underestimated was the degree to which their messaging is ineffective when the situation on the ground feels so tenuous. For people, economic sentiment's already pretty bad, and it's pretty bad in an era of the last couple years where we've had wage growth, where jobs have been pretty robust, unemployment's been low, and energy prices have been decent. Inflation has hit a lot of other places, but, I mean, it hit energy, too, but it's just still manageable. I think, for a lot of people, if something like this gets unmanageable, which it could in the next couple months, I don't know what the President does, which I think kind of brings me to maybe one of our last questions to explore here. And I think what happens in the Strait of Hormuz is directly related to this, which is whether this is just the beginning or we're at the end now, I'll show my cards here and say when that. Ari, you brought it up. That oil spike we had where went over like, $100 a barrel or something for a whole afternoon, then it collapsed. Then it was the largest drop in oil prices in a day. When I saw that and I saw gas prices going up and the market was being a little jittery, I messaged our team on slack and I said 10 days. Within 10 days, Trump is going to be talking about, about an off ramp and the war ending, and he'll be framing this as something that's being over. I said that on Sunday night. This week. We're sitting here recording this on Wednesday evening, this morning. On Wednesday morning, Trump told Barack Ravid the Israel. I think he's Israeli and covers a lot of Israel politics. Axios reporter he said in a phone interview the war with Iran will end soon because there's practically nothing left to target. A little this and a little that. Anytime I want to end it, it will end. Trump said, I'm A, happy to hear that because I don't want this gone much longer and B, because I predicted it so it'll make me look smart. But I'm skeptical of it despite wanting it to be true. And I'm skeptical of it despite the fact 3 days ago I made this prediction because now watching some of the things that are unfolding and the machinations happening, I'm just not really sure what the off ramp is or how that story gets told if they were to leave right now. And so I'm kind of curious to get a temp check from you guys on. You don't have to prognosticate here. I'm not asking you to make predictions. I think that's a silly game. But if you had to make an argument that this was the beginning or make the argument this was the end, what do you feel more inclined to and how would you put it? And Ari, maybe we can start with you. I mean, because I don't know. I really don't know. Like I said three days ago, I think I was like, okay, we're finding an exit ramp ASAP. And now I'm just like, there's 17 countries involved. Iran won't stop bombing US soldiers and bases and ships, and there's all this stuff happening with the oil and there's no clear we did it, mission accomplished moment. So how are we going to walk away from this right now? I don't know. Yeah.

[Ari Weitzman]

And that's the most complicating version or aspect of this question in my mind, because you want to ask how the US Claims success in leaves, But I also think that's maybe the least important variable here. I think Trump's really good at messaging. He's really good at it. He'll do what he wants and say that it worked. So that kind of doesn't matter. If Trump decides, he's telling us pretty directly, if he decides he's done, he's going to say, okay, we did it, we're out. What did we accomplish? We took out their leadership, we continue to cripple their capabilities, our ally is defended. But I don't know if he has to go that deep. It's just we took out this regime. That's all he'll have to say. And we're leaving. And the United States doesn't have to be involved with boots on the ground. He has said at the same time, he's unafraid of saying boots on the ground like this. Not magic words that I'm afraid of chanting.

[Isaac Saul]

I don't have the yips about boots on the ground is what he said.

[Ari Weitzman]

There's some phrase that, yeah, that was, like, kind of odd that that was it. But, like, I think the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. And Trump's past behavior has shown he's a fan of big strikes, big headlines, and on to the next thing. So I think that's going to be the play here. However, the comp. The really complicating factor, I think, is all this stuff outside of the plan's control. And I'll ask you guys, maybe, maybe I'll turn the tables just to you, Isaac, and ask you another quiz question, which is, how many people died in the Benghazi attack? Wow.

[Isaac Saul]

There was a time in my life when I would have been able to rattle this number off immediately. I want to say it was somewhere between like 30 and 50. In the. Four.

[Ari Weitzman]

It was four. It's four Americans who died. Four Americans died.

[Isaac Saul]

How many people were injured?

[Ari Weitzman]

Good question. So let me look that up.

[Isaac Saul]

That's remarkable that I remember it that way.

[Ari Weitzman]

Yeah. Well, I think it's kind of indicative

[Isaac Saul]

of the messaging victory.

[Ari Weitzman]

This is kind of my point. Right. Is that. And I'm sorry, I'll have to, like, I don't have those. The stats about it offhand, so I have to look it up as we go. But. Or maybe you can do it. But the point that I'm making here is kind of, kind of obvious, which is if something like that can have such an enormous impact on the way we judge the success of one administration's foreign policy, what happens when Trump declares victory, starts to withdraw, and then something happens at a US Base in Oman or uae, or one shipping vessel gets sunk and we lose two American sailors? You don't control the narrative anymore, and this becomes Trump's Benghazi. And are you willing to leave when you started this fight under those terms? And then if that happens, then this is just the beginning.

[Camille Foster]

Hmm.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah.

[Ari Weitzman]

Camille's wincing.

[Isaac Saul]

Sorry. Really quick, Camille. I'll just. Just for the record, the initial reports indicated multiple injuries among Libyan guards and Americans in the consulate. Up to 30 total Americans and Libyans were wounded in the broader incident. But it later came out that about seven U.S. personnel were seriously injured and four Americans were killed. So, I don't know, maybe I was remembering that 30 number, but the initial report. Wow. And that was 14 years ago. I can't believe. Believe that. But yeah. All right, go ahead, Camille.

[Camille Foster]

No, I'm just. I think this. This line of questioning is right. We talked earlier about, like, what does. What does success look like, but what does. How many different kinds of ways can you withdraw? Is a really important question, and I think we're all in broad agreement here, at least. Isaac, you kind of more hinted at your conclusion about this, but the president can decide that the United States is no longer going to engage here, but that doesn't mean that Iran will not be as belligerent as they've already been. We've talked about the straits. I don't know if we've said explicitly that just this week, in the last 24 hours, three vessels were struck. None of them were military. These are all merchant ships that are going through. No oil tankers or anything like that, but from flying a bunch of different international flags. And this after the President of the United States just a few days earlier says explicitly. I don't know why people just won't be courageous and brave. Just go on through the straits. It's fine. Like, we destroyed all of their navy. They don't have any ships anymore, except just today. CENTCOM acknowledges that they managed to destroy two or three ships overnight. Actually, it might have been more crafts than that. I'm not sure they were specific about it. Cause obviously, when they're giving these reports, they're not always detailing all of the specifics for the obvious operational reasons. But they destroyed a bunch of these potential mining vessels, but they weren't using mines. These were rockets, perhaps even drones. We're not clear that we're striking these vessels. And they don't even need to do. They don't need to sink ships in order to create a great deal of chaos. We've talked previously about the odd economics of this conflict, that we are using these extremely expensive interceptor rockets and these high tech munitions that can do all kinds of precise things, but the precise things that they're doing oftentimes are knocking down a drone that perhaps costs tens of thousands of dollars to put into the field to weaponize and to deploy and send that US assets in the regions or various things. For some of the other neighboring countries who at this point have been drawn into the conflict as well, it seems to me that it's not at all hard to imagine anyways that the United States leaves under a circumstance where they're no longer interested in this fight, where rather than Benghazi creating this kind of urge to get some payback on the part of the American people, that a circumstance like that creates a tremendous incentive for the Trump administration to get the heck out of Dodge, that it helps to actually give a tremendous amount of fuel to the opposition, who is growing in numbers and certainly has a lot of volume and at this point is at least somewhat bipartisan institutionally, if not in the polling of the kind of electorate broadly. But that could change really, really quickly. And I think that that is a huge part of the calculus here that probably hasn't been taken into account. And the Straits is probably where a lot of that, the most dramatic stuff is likely to play out in terms of Iran's ability to very cheaply create a lot of chaos for the global economy.

[Isaac Saul]

Before we get out of here, I do have to share one last kind of forward looking question that I think maybe is in play right now, which is the US Boots on the ground and the potential for that. I mean, Ari referenced Trump saying, I don't get the yips about talking about this. I have been extremely outspokenly skeptical of the possibility that U.S. troops would ever be boots on the ground in Iran because I think Trump has better political instincts than that. And I think the wariness around Middle east intervention is just so strong in the U.S. it's hard for me to imagine Congress even allowing that without stepping up to doing something which I know is like farcical to say given all their actions, but I feel like maybe that would push some Republican senators over the edge enough of them to invoke some kind of war powers resolution. But what I will say is a, there is a pretext now that I'm starting to see. The first person who I saw talking about it was Gregory Brew, who's a senior analyst at Eurasia Group on Iran and Iraq oil. And he wrote a tweet and did an article about how the US has determined that Iran could retrieve the highly enriched uranium stored at one of the nuclear facilities that the United States claimed to have destroyed last year. So there's now an active debate about whether to deploy US Troops to seize that uranium before the Iranian regime does. I sent that tweet and the ACcompanying article to 2 active duty, fairly high ranking military people who I communicate with about this conflict have been messaging and both of them replied basically like, yeah, that's a real thing that I think tracks with some of what I'm hearing. And I wouldn't be surprised if that was something that the administration tried to pull off before we fully disengaged here. Seems wild to me that it's on the table, but we'll just throw it out for our audience. So it's not a total surprise if you start to see whispers of that turn into real action. Is again, do I think it's likely? No. But I certainly am not holding the position any longer that it's completely out of the question that maybe we see US Boots on the ground before this whole engagement's over. Despite everything Trump is saying, that's the kind of pretext like there is this enriched uranium we need to go get. Otherwise all this, this entire mission was a total waste. So we're going to deploy 500 Marines and just go get it and get in there and get out. And you know, obviously there's risk about that taking longer than a one or two day operation or something, but I think that would be a pretty jarring thing for the American public if that happens.

[Camille Foster]

It seems exceedingly unlikely. And I suppose if you did do that, it would probably have to be in the context of some international force or at least regional force that the Americans are supporting. 500 is just not going to be enough to get it done. And it's going to be.

[Isaac Saul]

I just invented that number just to be clear.

[Camille Foster]

Okay, well, look, any small detachment is not going to be sufficient to get it done. And it seems as though it would just be a beacon for potential attacks. I just, I can't imagine it. And it seems like if the trade off is between, well, we'll leave some people there to secure this particular area and these things versus well, we can have a strike come through later if we need to. You do the strikes, that's at least something that, you know, you can do with a level of reliability. Even if you can't completely annihilate the threat, you hope that you have sufficient high quality intelligence to get that done. And it seems to me that that would completely obviate the risks that are created by just Having a detachment of troops that are on the ground in the region in an area that's far less easy to secure than a military base. And we certainly know that there are difficulties with that as well.

[Ari Weitzman]

So I think there's. I'm a little hesitant to speculate here because we're talking about what may happen and about plans that we're not super aware of. I think there's very easily a way to interpret these communications as muddying the waters, trying to create rumors of a threat. It's also very possible that this is just diligence, saying these troops have to be ready to be deployed in case of contingency, that we don't want to happen. Like the things that we're talking about, of ships being sunk in the Strait of Hormuz or some attack on a U.S. base in the Middle east, or. This is something that was published in a Forbes article just today. But the FBI warned California Police Department that Iran had allegedly aspired to attack California with drones as part of a retaliatory attack. So if that's the case, you have to be ready for counter attacks with deployments. Possibly none of these things have actually happened, is the point. And we can. If we think of one of the ways that the US Is potentially planning some risky, aggressive operation, we can be really suspicious about whether or not that's worth it. But on the other hand, if it's just like it could be any number of things that make sense of being responsible, carrying out a larger mission that we can talk about whether or not that goal is irresponsible. But telling troops to be ready to be deployed without any sort of corroborating information about what the way that fits into the rest of the puzzle. It's tough to really make a comment on it.

[Isaac Saul]

All right, gentlemen, we've been here chopping it up for over an hour, so we've got to start to wind ourselves down. Let our beautiful audience go. John, I think maybe it's time for a little grievances to carry out the day. We talk about all this big, scary, horrible stuff, and now we get to complain, complain about our mundane lives. And I can't wait to hear from Camille. Today,

[Camille Foster]

the airing of grievances. Between you and me, I think your country is placing a lot of importance on shoe removal.

[Isaac Saul]

Camille, do you want to start? Man, are you in a wheelchair right now? Are you okay?

[Ad Voice]

I'm not.

[Camille Foster]

I'm not in a wheelchair. I am decidedly uncomfortable because I sit on a stool when we record these, and it is really, really Hard to keep my foot elevated while we're having this conversation. I suppose I've given the game away there. Last week, son's birthday, very wonderful and exciting. Sunday, he had a birthday party on Sunday at this birthday party. It's an indoor play area and there was a hill, a green hill with this weird fake turf on it. And the kids are running up it and my wife tries to run up it and she gets beaten by my 8 year old. And I laugh and I said, was that serious? Did you let that happen? And she says, no, she beat me. And it's hard to run up here. Could you do it? And essentially challenging me to do this in front of my children, I had no choice but to take off full speed and to try to conquer this hill. And not only did I conquer it, I did it in style. I mean, I was gazelle, like in the way that I screwed up, that

[Ari Weitzman]

you sent us a message, that you described them as strong, manly strides.

[Camille Foster]

Yes, that sounds right too.

[Ari Weitzman]

Yes, very well done.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, well, you know, just in front of your children, there are things that you have to do to prove, yeah, I'm a man, I'm still potent. I want you to remember me this way. And in the moment, nothing hurt. Everything was fine. The next day I started to feel some pain. And a little while longer after playing soccer with my son on the leg, after my wife said, this is probably not a good idea, fast forward like 48 hours and I woke up in the morning yesterday unable to really walk on it at all and had to go to urgent care and made another appointment with an ortho and got some X rays and it turns out there's no break. We think it is a pretty severe sprain, but there might be some other stuff going on there and it's not yet clear whether or not I'll need additional help. But further complicating things, and far more sad is the dog that I purchased some years ago. Not even purchased, adopted while I was still living back in New York. And he made the trip out west with us when we moved out here the first time. But when we were coming back, he's aged quite a bit. It's been a while since I've been in New York. He's a little over 12 or 11 years old. Actually, he passed away yesterday. He's just been a little sick for a little while and just got kind of a lot sick all at once. And it was pretty clearly time he couldn't get up and down stairs anymore on his own. So on the Same day that I'm at the doctor, in fact, I'm having FaceTime calls with my family, kind of talking to them about what's going on. I'm getting this news that the dog is also going to be shuffling off his mortal coil. So is not a great, great Tuesday, but my condition is improving, and if I do sound a little down today, like that's what's going on, I'm kind of trying not to grimace on screen because.

[Isaac Saul]

What's the dog's name?

[Camille Foster]

Knox Knoxville uses a Rhodesian Ridgeback and Coonhound mix. As I understand it, they refer to them as lurkers. He's like just a really gorgeous, big red dog who, I mean, could just run forever and ever and ever. And, yeah, I'm happy that we were able to, between my wife and I and our household and my sister and her husband over the past two and a half years or so, were able to give Knox a great home. And I would certainly encourage people to adopt if you get a chance to. There's nothing quite like bringing a dog into your family and having him become a part of it and being able to kind of take him out of a situation where he's just been like, living in a crate, having some other strange kind of unknown origin to you that was perhaps not so nice. And being able to give him that and also, little less heat for the puppy Mills. So, yeah, adopt yourself a dog.

[Isaac Saul]

Pour one out for Knox. Man, that's tough.

[Ari Weitzman]

That's so sad. I would not be able to handle that. I think the silver lining is it makes it a lot harder to make fun of you for your ankle. So he knocks. The dogs were loyal to the bitter end.

[Camille Foster]

That's right.

[Ari Weitzman]

Dog.

[Camille Foster]

Man's best friend.

[Ad Voice]

Dog.

[Isaac Saul]

All right, Ari, you're up, man.

[Ari Weitzman]

I have such a different one. It's going to be in almost every way, it's opposite. It's about a little thing that I've always been annoyed about with bathroom etiquette in public bathrooms and such a small thing. And it is an extremely inflammatory take that. I level at you, the listener. I almost guarantee, if you are listening to this, this is directed at you and your habits and both of you. I assume, too, you only need to use one paper towel when you dry your hands. If you're using more than that, you're being excessive and indulgent and you're taking up time and space. You get one paper towel, you use it until it's soggy and you throw it out. Get out of the way.

[Isaac Saul]

I Couldn't hate that. Take more than I do.

[Ari Weitzman]

And everybody, all of you are wrong. I know. You want to get so many towels. You want to make your hands nice and thoroughly dry. And you throw away these towels that are barely. Barely wet. Corner

[Isaac Saul]

towels.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. Not all paper towels are created equally either.

[Isaac Saul]

That too. Why don't you just use the drying thing if you're so towel conscious?

[Ari Weitzman]

The thing. I mean, why do you use one, they barely work. Two, they're not always there, you think?

[Isaac Saul]

And they're kind of gross. They're sort of gross. You think the hair dryer works? The hand dryer works less than a single paper towel does.

[Ari Weitzman]

Yeah, I do. I do. Got it. When that paper towel feels wet, it can still absorb the moisture on your hands if you want to. And your hands are still a little bit.

[Camille Foster]

Yes.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah.

[Ari Weitzman]

For like, five seconds. And then you can rub them together,

[Isaac Saul]

and then they're gonna get excruciating, and your skin's gonna enjoy the moisture.

[Ari Weitzman]

I think you can. You can manage.

[Isaac Saul]

Okay.

[Ari Weitzman]

I think you'll be able to handle your five seconds of moisture. How about you cut yourself down to two paper towels and see if you can manage that?

[Isaac Saul]

And then next time I'm in the bathroom, I'm gonna. I'm using 10 paper towels. I'm gonna think about you.

[Ari Weitzman]

Oh, you're like the guy who responds to the vegetarian, I'm gonna eat one cow for every cow you have. Just living your life.

[Isaac Saul]

Remember when I. Oh, my God.

[Ari Weitzman]

Constantly.

[Isaac Saul]

We never really talked about this, but when I made a joke about Lindsay being a vegetarian in the press pass edition, and there were some angry commenters that thought that maybe I was really mean to her about being a vegetarian, which I'm not. I just think it's funny to joke about being a total carnivore, even though I kind of am. Well, he says he's covered in sweat.

[Ari Weitzman]

Look at you.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah. Fair grievance. It's so hot in my studio right now. It's been freezing cold here all winter, and so we turned the heater on before I came in, and it's like a 70 degree, nice spring day, and then the sun has changed, and it's just been beating down on me this entire time. So, yeah, I am hot. That's not my grievance, though. My grievance is Ari's grievance, which is a terrible taken. No. Okay, really quick. So you guys remember I did a whole thing about the missing socks in my house that, like, I. Oh, yeah. I'm only finding the left Socks Tango Original mystery. Yeah, there's been some readers. I've seen you guys. There's some listeners. Excuse me, who have said they want to hear updates about this. I interrogated my wife. I sat her down, I shined a flashlight in her face and screamed at her and asked her, where are they? She had no answer. She thought I was a psycho. She said, do you actually think I'm playing a trick on you? I literally don't have time for that. And then something really incredible happened. Phoebe, my wife, who I accused of being responsible for the socks, she came across an Instagram video with 2 million views and of this woman who was saying, I have all these socks and underwear that goes missing, and I can't figure out what's been happening. And somebody just told me to take off the front cover of my washing machine because sometimes clothes, like, fall in there and to check it. And then on the Instagram Live, she cracks open the front of her washing machine, and lo and behold, there's, like, years of socks and underwear in there that she's been missing. That she. And so. And she's like, her mind's blown and whatever. And there's like, all these funny comments on the video about her doing, like, you know, original journalism and all this stuff. So Phoebe sends me this video, and I'm like, oh, my God, this could be it. Like, this would be such a weight off my shoulders if I could figure this out. So I run downstairs to go to my. Literally, at like, 9am this morning, go to my washing machine to finally resolve that this mystery. And my washing machine is like a steel trap. It's like a safe. Like, there is no. This woman must have had a washing machine that was made, like, 45 years ago, because she just, like, dink, dink, dink, like, popped open the COVID of the machine with a butter knife and then revealed all her stuff. And mine is, like, metal straps and 45 screws. And I just, like, looked at it and tugged at it a little bit and then just gave up. So my grievance is that I'm pretty sure I know where all my missing socks are now. And I'm, like, close to being motivated enough to spend an hour taking apart my washing machine to prove it, but I'm not. And now I just have to live knowing that I'm pretty sure they're in there, like, stuck between the washing machine drum and the casing of the actual washing machine. And I'll just cap all that off by saying, I literally don't know if maybe this woman's in Instagram video is like totally staged and made up, so it could all just be a lie that's just gonna itch at me for the rest of time. So, yeah, that's where I am. And I, I won't, I'll be honest. I thought briefly, like, maybe for the bit for the show, it'd be worth spending like 80 bucks and having like a, you know, taskmaster come by and just like take the washing machine apart and see if you can find them. But I decided that would be a really dumb waste of money, so.

[Ari Weitzman]

Well, you know, and if you can wait like two years. Are you going to keep this washing machine or dryer?

[Isaac Saul]

I'm about to move now. I'm leaving. Yeah, it's over.

[Ari Weitzman]

Yeah, so you'll never know. I was going to say, like, this would be a really good way for a three year old to learn about dexterity. Give him this project and puzzle this thing off the front. But are you, are you seriously going to be okay just leaving the mystery when you leave the house? There's no way. Yeah, I just might leave behind.

[Isaac Saul]

I, I, I mean, I don't know, I'm saying this out loud and I guess maybe I should do it. I don't know. If somebody. How about this?

[Camille Foster]

I think you have to.

[Isaac Saul]

If somebody posts about this on the Tangle subreddit and it gets more than 50 upvotes, I'll take my washing machine up part and see if my socks are in there. That's my deal.

[Ari Weitzman]

Good challenge, Reddit. You're called out. Do your thing, Reddit.

[Camille Foster]

I want to, I want to put myself on the side of the bed that says this is fake and there's nothing in there. And this, this, I'm gonna take my

[Isaac Saul]

washing machine apart for nothing.

[Camille Foster]

Do it.

[Isaac Saul]

We're gonna be like trying to move out of the house and, and Phoebe's gonna be like, you need to finish packing and I'm gonna be covered in dust in the basement just taking this

[Camille Foster]

watch, trying to reassembling it. No, you'd be trying to reassemble it. Yeah, that's troubling after finding out that you've been had.

[Isaac Saul]

Yeah, well, we'll see. I'll let Reddit decide. 75. A hundred upvotes. 50 is not.

[Camille Foster]

No, 50.

[Isaac Saul]

People get 50 upvotes on just like one mean thing about me. A hundred upvotes. 100 upvotes and I'll do it. All right, we gotta get out of here, Jeff.

[Ari Weitzman]

It's a negotiation.

[Isaac Saul]

Okay, all right, I'll See you soon. Bye Bye.

[Ari Weitzman]

Just one paper towel's enough.

[Isaac Saul]

Our Executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our Executive producer is John Lowell. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman with Senior Editor Will Kbach and Associate Editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsey Knuth and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up, sign up for a membership, please visit our [e-mail].

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[Camille Foster]

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