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I do know that there are some aspects of this that are concerning and there are some ways in which this has very much gone according to plan for the administration. Let's break this down. Let's have this conversation now and we'll see where my analysis is in a week or two. We've been told that as of today, this ceasefire goes into effect, Iran will let ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz. And there's a lot going on here. First of all, what is supposed to happen from here on out? There's a negotiation that will take place for two weeks. As part of that negotiation, the Iranians have put forward a 10 point plan that is farcical from the perspective of the United States. Now, maybe that's just a negotiating ploy, fine. But why would they put forward something that I think America or the Trump administration is unlikely to meet them on a single of their deal points, or at least maybe only one or two. They want the right to enrich uranium. They want the ability to essentially operate the Strait of Hormuz like it's their own private little lake. And they can take tolls on ships that come in. They are going to keep their nukes, or rather I should say their nuclear program, such as it is existing still. The enriched uranium that they have, are they going to give that up? Let me backtrack for a second because there's so many pieces here. And what happens, I think, with a lot of people when they analyze this is they focus on one thing and they forget about all the things that are around it. Or because they want to either justify their point of view that this is a brilliant idea or this is a terrible idea. They go with whatever will support their narrative and they leave out all the other pieces. Here's what I'd say about the Trump Iran war. It's complicated. It's complicated. I think it was a gamble for President Trump. I think it's a gamble that has partially paid off. And I think we don't know the full outcome yet. There are still some very real risks. I think the main risks are actually political to Trump, though. So what's off the board? What's off the board, I think is catastrophic failure for Trump, meaning a ground invasion, US Troops in harm's way, US Troops getting killed in action. I don't see that happening in any context here whatsoever. So Bush era Iraq war disaster, that's off the table. So that's a win in a sense, or at least that's a good thing. That's off the table. What was the purpose of this? We're being told now it wasn't really regime change, but there was a lot of talk of regime change early on from the administration. So clearly they wanted regime change, but maybe that wasn't a top tier goal. And they seem, based on the reporting around this, particularly a New York Times piece, they seem to be willing to say that it's worth it to do this, even if, and this was their feeling, this was Trump's feeling, most importantly, worth it to do this, even if it does not result in, in a regime change situation. As long as we degrade their military capabilities substantially, particularly with regard to the ballistic missiles program, and we make it so they can never get a nuke. I mean, Trump has said this over and over and over again. They, Trump has said they cannot get nukes. He has made this the cornerstone, I think, of this whole effort. And here's where I think the risk remains. Iran is not going to give up its nuclear material, nor is it going to agree to the inspections and the other processes necessary to make it effectively in perpetuity, impossible for Iran to get nukes. They're not going to do that. And so since they're not going to do that, in my view, what cards do we have left to play against Iran? Well, we can continue, and this is the threat now for two weeks. We're saying we're going to negotiate and then we can hit them again. The threat is that we're going to blow up more of their stuff, but are we really going to blow up their civilian infrastructure? I Don't think so. I think Trump recognizes that that's not going to work either. And also it's, it's wrong. Worth saying that these are human beings in Iran and there are a lot of people there that have nothing to do with the military or the IRGC or any of this other stuff. There are children, there are babies, there are elderly people, like blowing up the power stations, the water treatment plants here. I think Trump was blustering about that. I do not believe he will do that under any circumstances. I'm telling you, these are the assumptions that I'm working on. I do not believe Trump will do that under any circumstances. So that said, what is the lever that we're going to pull if we don't get a deal? If Iran doesn't agree to give up its nuclear ambitions and give up its enriched uranium, which I do not, I'm under the assumption that will not happen, what do we do? We can say, well, we're going to hit them again. We're going to hit more of their military assets. Ok, you know what they'll do? They'll shut down the Strait of Hormuz. Now you can say, oh, but that will cut off their economic lifeline to the rest of the world by selling oil. Yes, but how does it play here at home if we go into the summer and we have more airstrikes against Iran, more instability, oil prices going up and with. No, at that point, it's very clear there's no guarantee that we're going to get rid of their nuclear program. And everything we've done up to this point hasn't gotten rid of the nuclear program because we wouldn't be demanding concessions about their nuclear program if we had already achieved that objective. So again, when you unpack this piece by piece, this is where I see all of this going. I don't think that the Iranian, I don't think that the fundamental or the foundational goal of certainty that Iran has no ability or, or a 99% certainty that it cannot go nuclear with a nuclear weapon. I don't think this process of our airstrikes ends with that happening. The Iranians people say, oh, but their people are suffering. They don't care. They don't have elections. The people in charge don't care how much suffering the average Iranian is going through. They probably welcome it, think it's binding them all together. So in that environment, what are the options? In that environment, what are we going to do and how much are we willing to risk a massive wipeout in the midterm elections here in the US if, if all it means is we keep bombing stuff in Iran. This is war. I think it's costing a billion dollars a day as well. I read the New York Times report. You know what? I'm gonna get more into that New York Times report in a second. But again, I'm trying to. I'm neither. I'm not. Oh, this is great. Oh, this is terrible. I'm. This is war. It's complicated. There are some good aspects of this, there's some bad aspects of this, and there's still a lot to be decided. And, and I, I'm willing to embrace the complexity of this situation and not pretend that it's just amazing, amazing military stuff that we've just kicked ass and everything, really. We've gotten everything we want. Why are we still negotiating if we've gotten everything we want? Because we haven't. So there's, there's some things here that are just undeniably true and that I think people don't want to hear on the pro and con or the, the support Trump, criticize Trump for this war sides. I think both of them aren't being fully honest about what's going on here. All right. The cell phone company I use, Pure Talk, has been a spa, a, a sponsor of this podcast for five years now. 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Okay, so now we go to this New York Times reporting about all the different players here. JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, the General Kane, Secretary Hegseth, all these different players. And it's reporting from essentially inside the Situation Room. So someone is the source. We could all guess who the source is, but. Or we can have our guesses, I should say, as to who the source is, but someone is the source. So with all of that, one thing that comes up very early on is the widely believed sense that Netanyahu and Israel pushed very hard for this military action under the premise that there would be regime change. Now, they might have just been wrong on this one, but I think they were overselling it. And I think that comes across in the reporting. I think Israel really wanted us to help them take out Iran and it was a better sell. It was the WMD moment, if you will. It was a better sell of the administration. And to really just convince. It's just a party of one here they need, which is Trump, to convince Trump of this. They said we think the Israelis, Netanyahu specifically said, we think regime change is likely. I think that unfortunately that is that. Well, that has been proven to be untrue. It's certainly looking untrue. And I think that that should have been manifestly untrue from the beginning. So that's going to cause some problems going forward because this isn't a war for Israel, but Israel pushed for this war, Right? This is where you get into the nuance. This is where you get into. Let's speak honestly about this. Israel wanted this war. I think that is a matter of public record. They're fighting in this war. They clearly wanted this war. How did they push Trump and therefore the United States to fight this war alongside them? I think the regime change claims were perhaps a bit exaggerated in some, in some degree of self interest with regard to that. Now, you can never really parse that stuff out. And I don't think that anyone can force Donald Trump to believe anything. I think that Trump has wanted to do this for a long time. I think he's sick of the Iranians speaking nonsense. But regime change is not happening. And you've started to hear this. Well, it is a different regime because it's different people in charge. That's not how this works. Ok? We mean a different governing ethos in Iran. Some kind of a rule of law, representative democracy society, or even just a society that in the interim agrees that it does not have aggression against Israel and other neighbors and just wants to create a peaceful and prosperous society without constantly funding proxy groups and engaging in terrorism all over the world and all of that. We have not achieved that. And I don't think we're going to achieve that. So again, I go back to the scoreboard. If you will lack for lack of A better way of putting it. We don't have regime change. I don't think we're going to get a guarantee of a non nuclear Iran. They can shut down Hormuz. It seems to pressure us very effectively, which is what has happened here. And they still have a 600,000 man army on the ground there. We, they've gotten their surface to air missiles destroyed, their navy destroyed, their planes destroyed. Ok, but then again, what are they going to use all that for, right? Their, their big threat, I guess, comes from us and from Israel. So as long as they're not going to be invaded and their regime stays in place, I think the regime considers that a win. This is very complex stuff. I think that Trump rolled the dice on this one and I don't think it worked out exactly as he hoped or anticipated it would yet. That could change. And I need someone to explain the fault in my logic here if they disagree with this, because I keep hearing, oh, but look what we've done to their military. I know we've absolutely obliterated some aspects of their military and we've taken out some of their senior leadership or their absolute senior leadership, and a big chunk of it, fine, well, who's in charge now? Are they better if the answer is no and it looks like they still have a hold on the country? How much does it really matter that we killed Khamenei? How much does it really matter? And then if you start to look at things like what does this do to any sense going forward that there could be an Iranian uprising against this, I think those prospects are looking more bleak than ever. In a sense, if they weren't going to do it when they had America as their air force. They're not going to do it in a few years when you got some Democrat administration of race, communists who don't give a crap what happens to the Iranian people and think that we're the bad guys in everything, including all interactions with Iran, and probably want to distance themselves from Israel and all this, and you know that's not going to be a better situation. So we'll see. We've got two weeks here of negotiating. I think you're going to end this with two weeks of negotiating that results in a continuation of the ceasefire, which results in a continuation of the Strait of Hormuz being opened and more talking about deal points. And we'll be told through the summer that we're getting closer and closer to a deal. This is a bit like what happened with dealing with Putin and Russia, by the way. We've been to this dance before, but on the core points, the core concessions, there will be none from Iran. They will not concede on these things. The only other alternative I see is they concede and then they just break. They break the terms on it down the line. That's possible, too. So I'm. I'm coming at this from all angles. If you think I'm wrong, let me know. But this is my first rodeo. There's a lot of lessons learned from Iraq and from the broader Middle east that I think you can bring to bear on this. All right. Gold is good. Gold makes sense. Look at the global instability I'm talking about right now. You know what happens when things get unstable, when no one feels like the global economy is on the most solid footing or a lot of people don't feel like that. Gold goes up. Central banks are buying gold. Smart investors are buying gold. You can buy gold. Birch Gold Group, my friends, they have an incredible Learn and Earn Precious Metals event where you can learn more about macroeconomics and your savings and your ability to use gold and as part of your savings plan. Act now. This special event only runs through April 30. The value of our dollars was once attached to gold as its anchor. Gold makes sense. Text my name buck to the number 9898.98 to join Burch Gold's Learn and Earn precious metals event by April 30th. Text B U C K to 98. 98. 98. Today. That's a show in Iran. Shields High.