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Alrighty. So somehow the media are fully convinced that the best way for the United States to confront China, to confront Iran is basically to just do whatever they want. That seems to be what the media want because the President has been confronting China for two terms and the President has been confronting Iran for two terms. And yet, according to the New York Times and the Washington Post, somehow China and Iran have the upper hand. Now, that's a weird thing to say. It just is. It's a weird thing to say. Iran does not have a leadership class. They are all dead. Iran does not have forward military capacity. It's been destroyed. Iran does not have a navy. They're at the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz. They don't have an air force. They can't fly anything but low level drones. Iran doesn't have a functioning economy, but somehow Iran is winning. Meanwhile, China, which has a massive debt problem A massive demographic problem and serious military issues as well, by the way, because their military is wildly inferior to that of the United States military. China apparently is also winning. It turns out the best strategy, it's all motivated thinking. The best strategy is to make nice with the Chinese, to hug them so close, to give them everything they could possibly want, to go to the Iranians and cut a deal where we free up billions of dollars so they can rebuild their entire military machine. I'm not sure what else you're supposed to gain from news analysis from the New York Times that says how Iran gained leverage in the war or this from the Washington Post. China gains major edge on us amid Iran war, Intelligence report finds. Again, China has no oil. It receives a majority of its oil from the Strait of Hormuz, which is closed. How is China becoming magically stronger in some way? Iran has nothing functional in it, yet somehow they are magically winning. Now the idea here is that somehow China has gained leverage, Iran has gained leverage. These are talking points for people who don't understand geopolitics particularly well. Seriously. According to the New York Times, nearly three months into the conflict, the Iranian regime has succeeded in confounding US and Israeli expectations for a speedy victory. Again, it all depends on your definition of victory. We have not had a victory on planet Earth in which one side gets on the deck of an aircraft carrier and signs a surrender document for, you know, 80 years or so. It's been a while. So what do you mean by victory? If by victory you mean again, they have no top level military, that they are barely holding onto power, that their economy is non functional and that they are in desultory fashion firing drones at shipping. That this is a victory. I mean, it's a pretty narrow definition of victory, but that I guess is the New York Times definition of victory. The regime survived a wave of targeted killings early in the war. It then managed to turn the tables on its more powerful adversaries, introducing something of a stalemate. Since mid March, Iran has maintained control over the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway crucial to the world's oil and gas trade. It has been able to limit US and Israeli strikes on its energy industry. It even got President Trump to rein in Israel's war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, an Iranian backed militia. Now, most of these points are not true. So Iran maintaining control over the Strait of Hormuz, were that true, they would be able to ship their own oil out, would they not? They would be able to toll ships that were traveling, would they not? They cannot do any of those things. As far as limiting US And Israeli attacks on its energy industry, Trump is not sure that he wants to do that because he is not sure that he wants to destroy the lifeline of a future Iranian regime if they were to moderate. He's afraid that hurting the energy supplies in Iran would hurt the Iranian people. And sure, he is concerned at the spike in oil prices that would accompany an Iranian counter fire against uae, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. As far as the war in Lebanon, the Israelis are still pursuing that military action in Lebanon, and they're likely to pursue it further as time goes on because Hezbollah is again not giving up the ghost in Lebanon. Nonetheless, the New York Times did find experts in scare quotes here to explain that Iran is winning. Nicole Grajewski, who teaches at the center for International Studies at Sciences Po in France, says, quote, iran definitely has the advantage here. The US Is kind of flailing at the moment. Again, in what sense do they have an advantage? So the idea here is that Iran is pressuring UAE and Qatar, except the UAE wants the United States to go even further. Saudi may be lobbying the United States not to go further, but that's only because the United States has not evidenced willingness to go all the way. If the United States were to say to Saudi and UAE were toppling the regime, both of those states would be onside. What they don't want are half measures, which again makes some sense. So the pressure is not on the United States in the sense that America is about to be damaged. The pressure is on Iran as to whether or not the regime lasts. But folks, I'm sure that for you, just like for most people, most of their net worth is lined up in their home value. And no one's gonna steal your home, right? But here is the thing. It is possible to steal the value from your home through something called home title theft. Home title theft is pretty much as bad as it sounds. 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That's hometitlelock.com, promo code Ben or use the link below one more time. Hometitlelock.com, promo code BEN to get started. Iran's strategy, according to the New York Times, of targeting oil fields in surrounding countries has shifted much of the focus of the war to the crucial question of how to get the strait reopen and how to limit Iranian leverage over it in the future. Efforts to pressure Iran to reopen the crucial waterway have proved unsuccessful. Now, again, there are options that President Trump does not want to use, but he certainly could Nonetheless. According to the New York Times, Iran, though deeply damaged by the war, is likely to emerge from it with a valuable new asset. I assume this means shutting down the shipping in the Strait. Having at least partial control over the strait would not only be a source of revenue for the regime, but also a form of geopolitical strength. Now, they could have done that before. That's the whole point. Do you want a regime that could have shut the strait at any point to have a ballistic missile umbrella and nuclear weapons? The answer there is no. So again, it is yet to be seen how the war ends. But to suggest that Iran is somehow stronger now than they were before the war is crazy. They just did a thing now that they had to do because they were basically on their last legs. If they had not shut the Strait of Hormuz, that was their last point of leverage, which, by the way, puts them at odds with China, which needs that oil. If they had not closed the Strait of Hormuz, and if the Strait of Hormuz were to reopen without their economy reopening, they are still in very, very serious trouble. How about China? Well, the Washington Post is trying to claim that China is benefiting from all this, which is kind of hard to see since their economic growth has slowed and they've been relegated to stealing our tech. Nonetheless, according to the Washington Post, a confidential US Intelligence analysis details how China is exploiting the war in Iran to maximize its advantage over the United States across military, economic, diplomatic, and other fields. The assessment was produced this week for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and has raised alarm within the Pentagon about the geopolitical costs of Washington's standoff with Tehran. Now, we should be very clear. There are a lot of intelligence reports that get presented to the military. So we have no idea how important this one was. Was it sort of consensus? Unclear. Officials talked about the findings. They say that China has sold weapons to Persian Gulf allies of the United States. Beijing has also assisted countries around the world struggling to meet their energy needs, which would be weird given that Beijing does not have access to oil and natural gas. The reality is the United States has become the chief exporter of oil and natural gas on planet Earth thanks to what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz. You can see the graphics of gigantic numbers of ships that have been leaving American shores with American lng. According to the Washington Post, the war has also drained the US of massive stocks of munitions that would be critical in a potential standoff with China over the fate of Taiwan. The Iran conflict has allowed Beijing to observe how the US fights war and learn how to plan its own future operations. Okay, well, Beijing would have learned that in any conflict anyway. I mean, sides. Just as far as stocks of munitions being short, the reality is that's why we need to ramp it up. We should have been ramping it up beforehand. The fact that Joe Biden didn't ramp it up, the fact that Barack Obama slashed our military by leaps and bounds did not help. The report notes that Beijing has incorporated popular criticisms of the war into public messaging. Well, yes, of course that's true. None of this is a surprise. China trying to take advantage of international conflict is not some sort of gigantic shock. But the notion that China is somehow better off when it can't import oil from Iran or Qatar or UAE or Saudi. How? How? Truly, it doesn't mean China doesn't have counter moves. Any country worth its salt has countermoves. The question is, are they better off now or were they better off five months ago? And the answer is, China was a lot better off five months ago. But don't worry, you can always find an expert. Jacob Stokes, a senior fellow at a Center for a New American Security, which again is a left wing think tank, says on balance, the war in Iran is massively improving China's geopolitical position. Again, I have doubts that that is in fact the case. Nonetheless, there are people who are trying to pretend that Beijing is doing great, that Beijing is actually somehow making common cause with Japan and South Korea and Australia. Yeah, I think not. The biggest thing is that people who don't like Trump are claiming that China is going to step in and win the we're the moral party arguments. I have a hard time believing that. Unless you're an idiot. Stokes, again from cnas, says China has an opening to portray the United States as an aggressive, unilateralist power in decline because Washington cannot stop itself from getting embroiled in bloody and costly Middle east wars. Okay, first of all, this is not a particularly bloody nor particularly costly Middle east war. Second of all, China trying to portray us as an aggressive, unilateralist power while they threaten Taiwan, eat Hong Kong, threaten Japan, and all the rest build bases in the middle of the ocean to attack the Philippines. Yeah. I mean, again, if you want to believe what you're writing here, I suppose you can, but it's stupid. If you're the kind of person who wants to believe that China can make a moral case on the world stage, I would suggest to you you need to get your brain checked because you have a serious disability of some sort or another. But count on the media in all circumstances to take the side that says that America ought to be weaker in the world. That's become a popular point of view on both the left and the woke. Right. The truth is, of course, that the world is a much better place when America is stronger. President Trump understands that.