Transcription
Hi everybody. Today's Saturday, July 18, 2026 and our dear friend Mark Sloda is here with us. Welcome back Mark.
>> Nema. Thanks for having me. It's always an honor and a pleasure to be on Dialogue Works.
>> And I want to start with the latest announcement by Sandcom. They have just they publish a statement in which they're talking about the casualties in Jordan and at least from what they have said so far two forces were killed. One of them is missing. It means that something happened to him that they couldn't find his body. And then putting together all the it seems that the casualties are two killed, 15 with life-threatening and severe injuries being airlifted to Germany. Three to five on board that yeah, they killed Medawak and you know they're gonna it's going to be a some somewhere in Germany they're sending them there and dozens of minor injuries of troops who took shrapnel and debris and this is the basic description on their part when it comes to the casualties. What has happened in German? What it was a significant uh, you know, blast or somehow demolition in Jordan. Here is the video, Mark, of that missile.
>> Yeah, I saw it.
>> Yeah, this is what has happened in Jordan. And looking at this situation, Mark, we're getting back to war. As we were talking about it, you mentioned that last time we talked. He said nothing of there is no way to negotiate with the Trump administration. I remember that statement from you and basically we're getting back to the war. The two sides are escalating the infrastructures. They're hitting bridges in Iran. They're hitting desalination plants and Iran is responding the same way in Kuwait. They hit a desalination plant too, at least, and power grid in Kuwait. And this is the situation right now. The two sides are somehow trying to to fight back. Or Donald Trump or Trump administration tried to open up the trade of Hormuz. And the basic, I don't know if you find it that's really a legitimate objective on their or not, if they really have that objective in their mind because when it comes to the opening up to the of this trade of Hormuz, you don't go fighting in this trade to open it up because it everything going to get messy. And right now is the same way that the United States is attacking Iran. Iran retaliating. Nobody's able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, at least in the last two days, there were no tankers passing through in significant numbers, maybe one or two. What is your understanding of the current phase? And let's start with the casualties on two sides. We have the the attack on Iranian the city of Bandar Abbas. If you know that city is so important in the southern part of Iran, naval base of Iran and there the the main base for controlling the trade of Hormuz that the United States tried to isolate that by attacking all those bridges leading to that city. Go ahead, your understanding of the situation.
>> Yeah. So, um, uh, first of all, with with regards to the to the um, let's start back with the collapse of of the memorandum of understanding. Uh, it's it's I I certainly wasn't the only one that said the memorandum of understanding wouldn't last. Uh, that the US, as Russia has come to understand, is is both diplomacy incompetent and diplomacy incapable. They're they are incapable of of um honoring anything that they uh agree to. And uh, a uh message from the Supreme Leader, Mashaba Khamenei, uh, has confirmed that he has now reached the same conclusion that the US, uh, signature on on anything of any US leader means absolutely nothing. Uh, and the Russians have have long concluded that. So, welcome to the club. Um, and the the understanding now is that the US simply agreed to the memorandum of understanding because they had been losing the geoeconomic game of chicken, the dueling blockades, and the US strategic petroleum reserve uh was uh down to uh critical levels, uh, and there wasn't enough oil on the global market and prices were about to to start jumping. High all of their months of of successfully fairly successfully manipulating maintaining the prices. Uh, Trump posts played a part in that, the uh strategic petroleum reserve. Also, the Chinese played an important part in preventing a um spike because they stopped importing large uh amounts of oil and started drawing on their own strategic reserves for their uses, which effectively was reducing demand across the board too and helping keeping prices uh from from jumping uh catastrophically. So, but that was all coming to an end. Uh, and the Iranians weren't the ones who blinked. It was the US. They agreed to the memorandum of understanding with the, you know, the fingers crossed behind the back, making clear that, you know, I mean, they they never had any intention of fulfilling it. Their their primary objective was to um get uh a good amount of oil back into the global markets um and uh to restock and reload military forces uh in in the region.
Now, um, along uh with that, um, they had a they moved from trying to force all the goals of the US and Israel from launching the war have fallen by the wayside except for one, right? So the first goal was regime change, okay? That that's obviously not going to happen. And then other goals like some type of deal with nuclear enrichment. I don't believe that that was ever a really serious concern for theirs. That's more like the the varnish or or the icing on the cake. They know Iran didn't have a real nuclear weapons program and that's just you trotted out as a weapons of mass destruction excuse uh to go after Iran for hegemonic reasons. Uh, so and Trump himself said that, you know, we it's not really that dangerous and it's uh mostly about PR and psychological. He said that at multiple occasions straight out and and no one seems to recall that that he said that. So, uh, they're they're not actually that concerned. But other key demands that that uh Iran divest itself of ballistic missiles, right? That that has no one talks about that. That they stop providing aid to um uh Shia allied Shia forces, the Axis of Resistance throughout the region, Hezbollah, Kata'ib Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc. That's all gone. The only thing that the US now is laser-focused on is reopening the Strait of Hormuz. And that's because there's absolutely no way that Trump can walk away from this conflict and proclaim it as some kind of victory, you know, which he has to do both for his own ego and the reputation of the the hegemon. Uh, he has to has to win, right? He can't he can't lose. Uh, so he can't proclaim a win while Iran has control of the Strait of Hormuz and charging tolls or service fees or whatever for ships passing through.
So with the memorandum of understanding having failed to open the Strait of Hormuz militarily, and then geoeconomically with the the dueling blockades, the geoeconomic game of chicken, they switched to geopolitical or political means and they tried to peel Oman geopolitically off from Iran. Right? The way they interpreted the memorandum of understanding, which as I and many other people in the alt-media said, it was a huge problem with how vague it was that you could drive, I don't know, entire oil tankers through the through the holes uh in that document. Uh, all of the references for instance in Article 5 towards control of the Strait of Hormuz referred to Iran and Oman, and so the US chose to interpret that as we can deal with Oman and that's it. Right? So they tried to peel Oman off from Iran. And Oman is a tiny little country, uh, you know, without, you know, the big oil energy resources of its their uh, uh neighbors uh in the Gulf, and um, they were stuck between a rock and a hard place and trying to sit both sides of the fence between Iran and the United States. And the US was pushing this southern corridor, right, hugging the Omani coast. Uh, and they were having some success with that and eroding away Iran's leverage uh through their control of the Strait of Hormuz, particularly during the funeral of the former Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the the current Supreme Leader's father. Um, remember he was assassinated on the first day of the war, in the very first hours of the war, by a US-Israeli airstrike. Um, and uh, his funeral was finally held, and it was, even Forbes admits, the largest attended funeral in modern history and possibly in all of of world history. Um, but Iran was was loath to do anything militarily to provoke something during that period of of the uh respect of uh such a martyr uh as as they view uh him. Um, so but as soon as that funeral was over, Iran reached out to reassert control of the entire strait. And they, since Oman has obviously been peeled away from them, they even put out statements saying, because we're in a time of military crisis, you know, technically we have to, because it's between the US and Oman, the narrowest points of the straits, it's our territorial waters. Eventually, we'll have to work out a mechanism for administration of the straits between the two of us. But now, during a wartime crisis and without the unsaid being and Oman being put to the squeeze by the United States, we have to take total control of it ourselves. So they're now leaving Oman even out of mention in these talks. Uh, and they they took military action, decisive military action against anyone, any ships using the US-pushed southern corridor hugging the coast of Oman. Uh, they reached out and hit them with fast boats, with drones, with cruise missiles, uh, and and they hit and and recently they they added some more sea mines, uh, it seems, and a couple of ships have run aground of sea mines too. And as a result of that, in the past week, traffic through the US-pushed southern corridor, whatever Sandcom and Trump may say, according to all the independent um, uh traffickers, you know, the satellite data, you know, everything says it's gone. There there is no traffic through the southern corridor. There is only very light traffic through the Strait of Hormuz at all. And that's what Iran is allowing through, principally some ships to China and so forth. Uh, so the US can't accept this state of affairs. Uh, and so they returned to both the kinetic action to the attacks on on Iran, starting with attacks on the uh military assets and infrastructure uh on the southern coast right around the Strait of Hormuz, and then expanding out now eventually including wider infrastructure. Now, um, they also re are at least intending to reinstitute their blockade of Iranian ports as well. Uh, although that wasn't entirely successful the first time and I don't expect it to be this time. They have enforced it on at least a few ships. Uh, so they've started expanding out what they're targeting to hit Iranian infrastructure. And one of those infrastructure things that they're hitting in Iran now seems to be bridges, particularly bridges that essentially link uh Bandar Abbas, this vital port city, as you said, with the rest of Iran. And that is leading a lot of military analysts uh to to speculate the reason for such a thing. And and you could simply say they're trying to put strain on military logistics going to in the direction of the Strait of Hormuz. But another possibility is that they are seriously considering some type of ground operation. Uh, and Bandar Abbas would be what they need to seize to seize control of the Strait of Hormuz, along with possibly Har Island, which Trump seems to have a heart on for some reason, and and some other things. The problem with that is the US just does not have the combat forces in the region to do this. Um, they have less than 10,000 real combat troops available. That's not enough to seize Bandar Abbas uh or Har Island, much less keep it. And I can't imagine how they would maintain logistics to those troops. I just don't see it. It I mean, when the US invaded Iraq, they did it with hundreds of thousands of troops and it was not something that you could hide. It took them months to do it, move the logistics uh and and the munitions and the equipment to facilitate that. The same thing now. They wouldn't be able to do it much faster. And we just haven't seen that yet. So Trump has made some weird comments about, yeah, we need a ground invasion, but we could get someone else to do it. Who else? I mean, I can't really see the Saudi and UAE monarchies sending large numbers of troops, not that they have such large numbers, on a suicide, suicide squad mission into, um, uh, you know, some type of beachhead in Bandar Abbas or Har Island. No, that's that's not serious. That's that's not going to happen. UAE may get involved on the edges, right? Because they've become involved again, and we now know that they were involved during the whole first hot phase as well. But, you know, they don't have significant military forces. Uh, and by the way, one of the retaliatory strikes because Iran has started hitting back at infrastructure, evidently, they hit a military academy in Kuwait. So that's that's that's an interesting escalation as well. Um, I I just don't see a ground up, nothing sane. Now, I I acknowledge that there is a problem in being too logical and rational with regards to the Trump administration because they are not logical or rational in many of their decisions. So, there's always the possibility that the military could just go along with whatever insane plan they cook up and send troops on a suicide mission. All I'm going to say is if they did do that, if they sent a few thousand troops into Har Island or Bandar Abbas or or, you know, Qeshm or or anything like that, we should welcome that because they will be destroyed and that would be a huge blow to the hegemon, to the prestige, to Trump, to Trump's presidency personally, if they were stupid enough to do something like that. We should we should go them on. I don't think that the US military would would will will allow themselves. The US Navy is not allowing themselves Trump to order them into the Strait of Hormuz. So I don't imagine the Marines are are are going to be much more susceptible to suicide missions either. Uh, so I I just don't see that. And there have not been any serious attempts to activate potential insurgent groups like the Kurds, who are the Iranian Kurds are mostly in Iraq, or the the a lot of media of of the Baloch potential Baloch insurgents southeast. Uh, I had considered before the conflict started that those were possibilities, but everything I have seen in the past four months has told me that the CIA, Mossad, whatever, has not done the necessary groundwork to train, arm, incite these forces that would have been needed to be done to properly utilize them as proxies. They it it would have been possible, but they haven't done the work. They if they had, they would have already used them. So, I'm not really worried. And Iran keeps reaching out and tapping the Kurds in Iraq like once or twice a week still. Yeah. There there are Iranian attacks uh against uh Kurdish uh insurgent formations in uh the Kurdish region uh of Iraq, you know, the the specific um, uh opposition and insurgent groups from Iran and so forth. So that's a regular thing. So they're they're like you want to say pruning or or um, uh cutting the grass, you know, making sure that that there isn't anything that is capable of being risen up to being a threat there. So what does that leave? I I don't see. I I recognize the potential danger of strikes on bridges and what that could mean, but I just don't see any movement or critical mass of troops that would be necessary to do that. Maybe they want to scare the Iranians and Trump is Trump is all about bluff. We we know that occasionally he does follow through, but a lot more of what he says is just bluff, uh, that he never does follow through on. And I I just don't believe that there's currently any possibility of any serious sane uh military option on the ground in Iran. I I I can't see it. So what what does that leave the US with? Strikes, just a punishment campaign, hoping that they do enough punishment to Iran that they, you know, will start ceding to US demands, which is what they tried and failed to do during the first, you know, 40 days uh of the hot phase of the conflict. And we know they have less standoff munitions now, and that Iran's air defense stood a lot stronger than than many people, including including me, expected it to. Uh, so it it really leaves Trump again with no good options. And I think it's actually beneficial for Iran to return to this hot phase of the conflict because during this period of the ceasefire and then the memorandum of understanding, the US was doing a lot to subvert it and to erode away Iran's leverage and control of the straits. Now we're we're setting everything back. And as time goes on and and there's increasing shortages to the global uh energy market, that all plays in Iran's favor. And the US has not been able at all to refill its strategic petroleum reserve. So we're not even operating on a timetable like we did before. Uh, the the timetable to precipice level global energy crisis is much closer uh than it was last time. So, um, I I'm not I'm not saying that at the end of this that the US is going to come to another memorandum of understanding and actually follow through on it. I don't believe that's possible. I don't believe that the US can be trusted that way. I think eventually what Iran must instead focus on is coming to a modus vivendi, a a a a method of understanding with the Gulf Arab states themselves. They have to peel them off to some extent from the United States because otherwise we're just going to be stuck in a perpetual low-level, long-range strike conflict in the Middle East and in and around the Strait of Hormuz, and with no sign of that ever ending. Iran is it can't give the US what it needs to save face and walk away from this situation. So the best we can hope for is that it kind of subsides into low-level conflict and that Iran reaches some some understanding with the Gulf Arab states that slowly freezes the US out of the situation and allows them to limp away and attack Cuba or something uh to try to save uh save their ego and face there. But again, Iran is is sitting in a good situation now. They have escalation dominance, as they did during the first time. You reach out and you hit Iran's infrastructure. There's a lot of vulnerable infrastructure that Iran can reach out and hit in the Gulf states that are serving as the launch pad for these US attacks. The first desalination plant in Kuwait was hit, as you said, but there's a lot more damage that can be done. And Kuwait, for instance, is reliant on desalination for 90% of its potable water, as well as its energy industry, which is, you know, all such things are heavily water-dependent as well. So, um, that's, you know, all kinds of leverage uh there. They've also announced, Iran port facilities throughout the Gulf States that it will start hitting if these attacks on its infrastructure continue. And they've also indicated all of the Trump brand-owned hotels and golf courses throughout the region that they will reach out and hit. And I would love to see that. I I mean, yeah, it's of zero strategic value, but there's a certain powerful, um, uh, symbolism that that would be incurred. And can you imagine Trump's reaction to his own property being destroyed? That would just be that would just be wonderful. Uh, so on on top of that, if we're returning to a geoeconomic game of chicken again, Iran is well-placed for that. They got plenty of oil out. They very rapidly and very efficiently did that during the two weeks of the memorandum of understanding. So they have a lot of potential oil to sell uh out on the markets. Uh, and they now have plenty of extra storage space uh to to start, if they need to, start storing oil again without shutting down their fields. So that puts them all in a good situation. Uh, the Houthis are mobilized to shut down the Bab el-Mandeb Strait if that becomes necessary, and that's a second nuclear option. But they've also got the fiber optic cables beneath the Strait of Hormuz. They've got so many escalatory options here. And the US only escalatory option is more kinetic strikes, which just didn't work. I mean, Trump is even talking now about Pickaxe Mountain. You know, I I guess he just fixated on that. And the US didn't even try to attack that in 2025 or 2026 because it's just a mountain of granite on top. I mean, the experts say even a tactical nuke might not be enough to to get that facility. So, why he brought that up, I don't know. Um, someone told him about it and he became mentally fixated on it, maybe in a way similar to how he's fixated on Har Island. But the US just doesn't have good options. They could potentially target and wipe out another swath of the Iranian leadership, in which case they'll be replaced, and it would be even more likely that the IRGC would have an even greater role than they do now in the next, the next iteration of Iranian government, which would not result in any Iranian capitulation to the United States. Uh, and the new Supreme Leader seems um very cognizant that his own father and many members of his own family were just killed by the US and Israel, and he doesn't seem uh disposed towards rolling over and showing the United States Iran's belly either. So, um, the options don't look good for the United States. The US is a very powerful, very wealthy country, but it's the global hegemon, and there's only so much force it can exert in any one theater because it's got so much other commitments elsewhere in the world. And they've pretty much exhausted what they can do against Iran uh in the Persian Gulf, not without, you know, like I said, months of building up troops for a ground up or something like that. And I don't expect them to come to any renewed diplomatic understanding, at least not one that means anything. Uh, I just expect them to to have to limp and and walk away and talk smack about Iran behind their back as they're doing so effectively and talk about how bigly Trump wiped out Iran and their military and their air force and their navy and everything, and there's nothing left there, and you know, that sort of uh absurd, look how great these these clothes I'm wearing are coming coming from the emperor with no clothes. Um, I I am confident that Iran is in a good position uh to resist anything that the US wants to do and to retain control of the Strait of Hormuz and thus have and have a degree of dominance uh over the Arab states moving forward. There there has been a danger in the past week of the conflict escalating not just in terms of of moving to broader infrastructure on both sides but horizontally. And uh the first example of this was Saudi apparently hitting uh the airport in Yemen uh that an Iranian delegation was landing in. I don't I I can't understand what they thought they were doing. And I bore tells us that they got the green light from Trump for that. Did they think if they stopped the Iranians from landing that would somehow stop the Houthis from shutting down the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Iranian, you know, request? I I I don't understand what they were thinking there. It was stupid. And the plane landed anyway, just at a different airport. And um, the Houthis fired back and hit a Saudi airport pretty bigly, to use Trump terms, as as far as I can see from the videos. Another thing that we've seen in the past week of retaliation is the absolute ineffectiveness of US-provided air defense. Everything the Iranians launch in terms of ballistic missiles gets through, and its precision seems to be confirmed by all the satellite pictures that we have emerging so far. Uh, so they're doing very good on that score. Again, videos of six, seven, eight Patriot PAC-3 interceptors being fired up and not stopping anything. The Iranian, and increasingly I'm seeing drones get through, also without without proper interception either. So that shows how vulnerable the Gulf states, the US bases are there, but also the Gulf Strait infrastructure is to Iran in the attacks. And, you know, I mean, I mean, you I guess you could always hold out the fantasy that Iran is running out of missiles. You know, just like Russia's running out of missiles or tanks or or whatever. It's an eternal neocon fantasy. And and the only truth of the matter is the US is running out of standoff munitions and interceptors. And seeing Bahrain, Bahrain launched dozens of interceptors in one night in a vain attempt to stop missiles coming in, and Bahrain got pounded. And all I can imagine is see Zelensky just crying over the number of interceptors that Bahrain was wasting flailing into the air in attempt to stop Iranian missiles. Not that I expect that those interceptors would do any better in stopping or m Russian missiles hitting Kyiv or anything else. I mean, we we see now how much of a lie is coming out of the Kyiv regime with, you know, respect to how much interception of Russian missiles they've had all along, because if they can't, if the interceptors can't even stop, um, Iranian ballistic missiles, well then they're certainly not stopping Russian ballistic missiles either. So again, air defense is the US and its allies' Achilles' heel, air and missile defense, not only in the low number of systems and the low production rate of interceptors, but we now see definitively, as Ted Postol has always told us, the Patriot can't hit [ __ ] when it comes to ballistic missiles. It it just can't. Aircraft, maybe, right? You know, um, cruise missiles, possibly, depending. Uh, drones, sure, if you wanted to waste a PAC-3 interceptor on a drone, okay, you know, go ahead. That we'll take that war of attrition math any day of the week. But it is just not an effective, it's already obsolete in in terms of air defense. Uh, so, uh, that it just all of it leaves the US and its allies in a very vulnerable position. And if the Arabs are smart, then, you know, I I like to to think that most of the Arab states will recognize that they need to, I don't expect that they can kick the US out of their countries, right? They are security dependent on them, but they will have to reach some type of accommodation of their own with Iran because the US, you just can't deal with them. You can't you can't deal with the US in general, and you certainly can't deal with the Trump administration. Everyone now understands that. Russia, China, Iran, there's there's there's no diplomacy possible with the United States. So, but, you know, Iran will take hits, they will suffer damage, they will lose civilians, they will lose military assets, they will lose infrastructure, but ultimately they're just in just as strong a position as they were at the end of the 40-day first hot phase, if not stronger now. What's the difference right now this time around is that Israel is not part of the war.
>> Is it is just somehow sitting aside?
>> Not yet.
>> Yeah, not yet. Exactly. Channel 15 in Israel said that the Israeli defense establishment is preparing for the possibility of a significant escalation in the region. It seems that their assessment, the other statement by Israeli Channel 13, it said that Israel confirms that the United States is preparing to expand its campaign in Iran, calling it a critical week. It seems I don't know what is Mark when it comes to the objectives. So far, considering all of these attacks in the southern part of Iran.
>> I don't see that much happening strategically in favor of the United States.
>> Yeah. Again, I I just don't see them having the ground option being possible. So I mean, all of the southern areas of course are where the assets are whereby Iran exerts control over the Strait of Hormuz. So I think that is more likely what they are attempting to do rather than any serious any type of near-term possibility of a ground operation. You know, if the conflict continues for another half a year and we start seeing large numbers of troops gather, then we can reassess that. But right now, what they're attempting to do is reduce Iran's ability to exert control over the Strait of Hormuz. The problem is is that it's just not that hard to do. And Iran has so many assets available to do it, right? The fast boats, the mini subs, the surface drones, the underwater drones, the UAVs, the cruise missiles, airstrikes, sea mines, even artillery can all be used. Cruise missiles, you know, can can be used to reach out and hit any tanker moving through. And Iran does not need to hit every single ship if ships are stupid enough to rush in, which they're not being right now. A few of them were. Uh, and they're paying the price because all you need to do is hit enough of them for insurance companies to say, "No, no, no, no. We're not covering that anymore." Then then it all stops. So that's all they need to do. It's just this has been remarked upon by US officials in the past few months that it's simply so easy for them to do. It requires so few resources that no matter how thoroughly the US bombs uh the southern Iranian coast, it's almost certain that Iran will retain the capability to reach out and control, you know, to exercise control over who is passing in and out of the Strait of Hormuz, no matter what the US does. And I believe that Israel has not joined rejoined the conflict thus far. Obviously, they want the US to continue fighting this. They've pushed very hard for it. But they're trying to avoid getting hit themselves because their air defense and missile defense is also exhausted and largely ineffective against Iranian ballistic missiles as well. And they got clobbered so hard the first time that they're very loath to subject themselves to that again. And if they enter, then yes, uh Iran will return to targeting Israel as well. I I believe they've been legitimately scared. They they have legitimately been uh so they have stepped back and let the US take the lead. Although I imagine Trump will be like, "Well, if we're going in, you have to go in, too." And it's likely that we will see we've seen enough uh uh midair refueling tankers moving around that that probably will indicate that that Israel is going to rejoin uh with long-range strikes on Iran in the coming week along with the United States. But I I don't expect that, you know, the addition of Israel to this is going to be able to inflict enough damage on Iran to, you know, reduce their ability to uh control the Strait of Hormuz. If they couldn't do it during the first 40 days, they're not going to be able to do it now. I just I just don't see that as realistic. And every day of active kinetic strikes that continue, that short count of the number of Tomahawks and JASSMs gets lower and lower and lower. Frankly, China and Russia have just got to be sitting in the background going because that reduces the US capability to to use, you know, for any future conflict that might involve them, leaving them in the driver's seats, right? If China really wanted, which they don't want to do, but if they really wanted to militarily retake control of the of of Taiwan, they would be in an ideal position to do so because the US is just too short of munitions strength right now. And the same thing, Russia has less and less reason to fear a any down the road US military intervention in Ukraine, even if they decide to expand the goals of their SMO to include complete regime change in Kyiv, which they almost certainly will. And that that leaves Russia in a very strong position moving forward. And that's the problem. Uh, that Russia and China and Iran at this point, the three of them in their interlocking strategic partnerships, and you could throw in North Korea and and a couple of others as well, are so tightly coop despite all their differences, and there are enough differences and some mistrust, but they are still enough militarily and economically entwined in our globalized world that anytime The US tries to move against one of the three, it leaves itself open and vulnerable in a relative position with the other two. They wasted so many air defense interceptors providing them to the Kyiv regime in Ukraine, and by the way, playing whack-a-mole against the Houthis in Yemen for years under Biden and Trump, that now they don't have enough interceptors to wage a a proper campaign against Iran without Iran being able to do what they're doing now. And we could also include in that how incapable the Patriot system is in general, even if they had interceptors for it. But they're they're they're in a weak position in Iran because of the conflict in Ukraine. And if they decided to refocus back on the conflict in Ukraine, they would be in an even weaker position because of what they've done in Iran. They try to geoeconomically [ __ ] Iran by blockading their ports, which raises the price of oil, which pours money into Russia's economic coffers. You take one action and you're aiding the other side in all of this in multiple dimensions. And during all of this, China just keeps sitting back and winning and doing nothing, doing nothing and winning because the US is wasting its economic power. It's wasting its military potential in Ukraine and Iran. And there's just now no possibility of the US even imagining that it could engage in some type of kinetic conflict with China off of their own coast in Taiwan or the South China Sea and have any chance of victory. It's you you would have to be Trump-level stupid to even imagine such a thing is possible now. And every month that passes, China's military becomes more powerful, more advanced, more stocked, and the US is frittering away its resources on conflicts that it can't even win.
>> I think when the war in Ukraine started, then they thought they said Iranian drones are in Russia and helping Russia. I think the the case of these two wars are getting so much.
>> Yes. You know, important for both countries that they see, you know, one side is helping the other side strategically, you know, militarily, everything is in.
>> The the Iran provided Russia uh with the strateg with the plans, right? With the the license to produce the the Shahed 136, which quickly became the Geran, right, up now to the Geran for seeker on five black and and all the various iterations. And this has been a real, a real wonder, right, a real important weapon in the conflict in Ukraine. It can now do so much. And Russia has learned how so much how to evolve that systems, jet engines and air-to-air missiles and all of the other possibilities, mesh networks, all of the other possibilities now. And we were told by Forbes, and I have no reason to doubt that, that Russia has now returned those advancements in drone warfare, uh, and the intelligence to use them, the tactics to Iran, which has been capable of uh using them now to a better degree through all of that experience and evolution of the systems involved. And Hezbollah's use of fiber optic drones, particularly against Israeli tanks, right? You know, but but everything else as well. It was Russia that has pioneered the use of fiber optic cables uh for drones in the conflict in Ukraine. And I guess it is not entirely impossible that Hezbollah simply saw the videos and figured it all out and worked it out themselves. I don't want to talk down. No, I no one should have any doubts about Hezbollah's capability uh to do to do such things. But I think it extremely likely that Russia provided that technology and the understanding, the experience, the tactics of how to use it properly to Iran, and Iran, not having an opportunity to use it themselves because that's a close quarters combat thing, transferred that to Hezbollah. And we've seen Hezbollah use that extremely effectively in their resistance operations against Israeli um occupation of of southern Lebanon. They've made them really pay a price. And the fiber optic drones have been a big part of that. And again, that is cooperation among, if you want to call it, the wider Axis of Resistance. Um, again, you go after one, and now they're all so interlinked economically and militarily, military-technical, as Russia likes to use the terminology, even without providing troops or, you know, large numbers of weapons, simply sharing data, simply sharing intelligence, sharing design, sharing tactics, sharing combat experience, that all matters. And it matters to a very big degree. And we're seeing it. Iran's improved precision of their weapons, of their targeting between 2025 and 2026. I mean, they were already good enough in 2025. What they're showing now is that they have directly benefited from Russian and Chinese intelligence, uh, I believe to to a very high degree, and that has made them even more deadly than they were before in their their precision, uh, and capable targeting of US military assets throughout the Middle East, and they've made the US pay a price.
I think the final point of the war, you remember during the second round of the war in February 28th, when Iran started attacking, it was an LNG facility in Qatar which was attacked. Then the United States, Donald Trump came out and said, that's enough. We're not going to attack your oil facilities in the southern part of Iran. You're not going to attack them. And what do you think that as time goes by and they're escalating somehow, at some time they're going to attack their oil facilities, LNG facilities, and these?
>> And what is that going to be the final point to bring some sort of sanity or to deescalate, or they're going to go farther and farther?
>> The US will go farther and farther because ultimately they're not suffering directly. They're suffering indirectly, damage to the global economy. I mean, diesel prices in the United States, inflation are rising, rising, right? But that's all indirect. The US is not losing many troops, right? They're not losing, um, you know, the infrastructure to their countries. So, you know, mentally they can push those losses, you know, off on their Gulf state allies because those are the ones who are suffering the losses. I simply don't believe as hegemon, the US can accept any surrender terms and mean it, uh, in the Middle East. Uh, certainly not with their their political relationship, the political power of of the lobby uh in the United States, you know, with their relationship with Israel. So I expect there to be substantial escalation in the coming weeks. Eventually, if we're to be saved from a complete destruction of every all the infrastructure in the Middle East, it is the Gulf state leaders themselves that are going to have to step forward and take at least one step back from the Americans and come to terms of their own with the Iranians. And the Iranians are more than willing to come to terms, I believe, with the Arab leaders in the Gulf. That's what they've always wanted. Uh, but, you know, their control of the the Strait of Hormuz is the price that everyone's going to pay, uh, for what has happened for them, the Arab states facilitating this attack on their country, and that's got to stop. Moving forward with regards to the US and Israel, there's no there's no hope of peace with them, right? That that there will be conflict at one form or another, even if it eventually subsides back into some type of hot cold war. You you just can't sign anything with the United States that means anything. And Russia has discovered that, you know, that there's not going to be any meaningful peace between Russia and NATO in the conflict in Ukraine, right? Things will just have to be settled as they are in the battlefield, and even at the end of it, that won't be the end of it, right? There is no peace with a desperate, you know, failing hegemon, right? We're we're already in the some iteration of the Thucydides Trap, and it's not just China that is on the block this time again, because China and Russia and Iran are so interlinked that it it all kind of extends out to them. And the US is just not going to be able to accept this state of affairs with Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East because it means the end of their hegemony there. So, uh, they're they're not going to, there's just not going to be a meaningful peace with the US and Israel, with Iran. Iran can just forget that. Anyone in the Iranian government who still believes that peace is possible, some type of diplomatic resolution, Galab Aragi, I hope you still don't believe that because it's not possible. Um, and the Supreme Leader seems to understand that, at least, and I'm quite sure that the IRGC does. The Russians have come to understand it, and God knows they've tried hard enough to reach some type of accommodation with the US. It's just not possible. So, you just have to get in a position of strength, militarily, economically, you know, however you can do it, and you just keep the jackboot there, because that's all you can do until the hegemon is no longer a hegemon. All right. Uh, that that has just just to keep up. And, you know, just forget forget peace, forget diplomacy with the US. It's not possible. I do believe that at the end of the day, some type of understanding, some type of modus vivendi is possible with the majority of the Gulf leaders. I they will have to come head. One Saudi has done a stupid thing this week with with the um, the strike in Yemen. But they did send a delegation out of respect, out of statesmanship, at least, if not personal respect, to the funeral of uh, the uh, the former Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And that that tells me that there's still some adults in the room in Saudi Arabia. And that eventually they will be, it's, it's a really sad state of affairs when we have to come to an understanding that there's a greater possibility of sanity and, uh, rational compromise capable out of Saudi Arabia or Qatar than there is in the United States. But ultimately, that's our best best hope, if you will, for some type of end of the conflict, at least between Iran and its neighbors, if not between Iran and the US and Israel.
>> Mark, let's assume that Israel is not going to they're not going to join the war anytime soon and they let the United States fight in the war.
>> I think they will. I think we'll see them enter it this week. But oh, let's say that, okay.
>> Okay, let's assume that. And what would be the moment that Iran would attack Israel? Because after if even Israel staying out of the war, not participating in the war, it comes to a moment on the part of the Iranians that they have to change their calculation, hitting Israel again to change the whole game. What is your understanding of that scenario?
>> Okay, if Israel started bombing Beirut again, that that obviously was a red line. And Iran has proven willing to for the time being, obviously accept, uh, Israeli military operations in southern Lebanon continuing. I don't know why they've reached that conclusion, but that that seems to be their their understanding, you know, what they're capable of at least right now with regards to Israel. Um, I really don't know. Um, Iran has refrained during the last week. Iran is Israel has directly stayed out of it. You know, of course, they're providing their bases and everything else, but um, I don't know if Iran runs out of targets that can uh effectively hit on US military bases.
>> That's my point. That's my point. When it comes to the, and that's that would be the moment that Iran would change.
>> Moment. Yeah. Yeah. Where if the US doesn't stop to reach out and start hitting Israel to make the US stop, if Israel hasn't joined in by that again, I believe that Israel is going to join in the near future. So that will kind of be moot. But yeah, I mean, I think there comes a point where if the US isn't responding enough to
The destruction of their bases and the infrastructure of their Gulf state allies that there is certainly an argument will be made within Iran. All right, then we need to stop, reach out, and start hitting the Israelis because that seems to be the only thing that the US actually cares about, uh, is is the Israelis. So that is a that is a real possibility. I can't say what the definitive line is, but if the US doesn't stop, then somewhere down the line, yeah, that that argument will be made. And I can certainly see that logic.
>> Exactly. Mark, before wrapping up, I think it's we have to talk a little bit about the case of Ukraine. The case of Ukraine is somehow getting complicated, and the Ukrainians are using their drones to hit the oil facilities, refineries in Russia to make some sort of problem, challenges for the Russian government economically, maybe with the case of the oil and gas. And
>> Let me just stop you there, right though. You said Ukraine and just simply gonna help you there. Fix that. Line that out. NATO.
>> Yeah. NATO.
>> That is who is behind all of this.
>> Exactly. NATO is doing this. But when it comes to the the calculation on the part of Russia, what can Russia do to change the the atmosphere? I'm not talking, I know that Russia's vision is a long run vision, but for the time being, what can they do to to ch to challenge NATO? I'm not talking about Ukraine to somehow challenge NATO the way that they have never experienced it before. That could be some sort of hit to NATO that they they finally understand what they're doing is so dangerous. Uh, Russia Russia's response right now is still against the K regime in Ukraine, and in response, actually, the in the past couple of weeks, the the intensity of the NATO proxy drone campaign against Russia has shifted from long range strikes. The the focus of it has shifted from oil refineries and the like to shipping, particularly on the Sea of Azov, uh, and the Black Sea. Uh, and Russia has responded by tightening its long range, uh, strike blockade of Odessa and Chernomorsk. And Odessa has just been pounded this week. Everything now because NATO and the Kiev regime expanded the conflict, the maritime conflict to include Russian commercial shipping, something that had not been done earlier in this conflict. Remember, there were grain deals and everything else. But Russia has now responded. They are no longer just hitting military cargo going in and out of Odessa. They're hitting everything. They're hitting grain shipments. They're hitting port facilities. They're responding in kind. And Odessa has ceased being an effective port. Uh, same thing with Chernomorsk and the other smaller ports, uh, in that area. And that's the way Russia is is responding. They're taking it out on the proxy, and they will continue to take it out on the proxy because ultimately, whatever damage they're doing to to Russia, and they're doing damage that shouldn't be neglected, but it still has not reached the level of moving outside the calculation box of the war of attrition. Obviously, as far as the Russian government is concerned, they're still doing much more damage to Ukraine. Despite all the hype and, you know, the the way the narrative media works, their long range strike campaign is doing much more damage to Kiev, and they keep advancing on the front, Konstantinovka, Kleyevka, further and further. They're still winning the attrition war. The math still adds up for them. The calculation box because this is a game of math, uh, to an even greater degree, I would argue, than the long range strike war is with Iran in the Middle East. And until the math starts trending outside of that box, they are just not going to consider. The whole goal of NATO in this case is to provoke Russia into moving outside of the attrition war, right? Because they're losing it, and Russia is not giving them that.
>> Correct.
>> So at some point, it may they may do enough damage that Russia is forced to take action outside of the attrition war. And that then we're talking some type of action against Europeans building drones or or whatever. But they're not at that point yet. Uh, and a lot of people are, I don't know, disenheartened or dismayed or have bought into, uh, the the psychological campaign that is being waged along with this, you know, oh, Ukraine is winning now. They've turned the tide. I don't believe any of that. I didn't believe it years ago. I don't believe it now. I encourage people to take a step back and understand how big the Russian bear is, and that the Russian bear can take an awful lot of pinpricks and fly bites and still keep its jaws tight on that attrition war grinding, uh, to victory. Uh, and no matter what you've seen and what you've heard, the calculation in the Kremlin is that the math still looks good. And until the math doesn't look good, I do not expect any direct action against NATO. Not because Russia is afraid of conventional conflict with NATO in Ukraine, because they're not, but because they are the adults in the room, and they recognize the problems with any potential conflict, direct conflict between Russia and NATO. What a slippery slide to the use of first tactical nukes and strategic nukes that is. And the the Europeans and the Americans in their insanity have lost their fear of MAD and nuclear war. The Russians have not. And all of those people who are out there viscerally hoping for Russia to hit back against some drone facility in in Germany or Poland or the Baltics or whatever. I urge you to take a step back and be grateful for Russian endurance and stoicism and restraint and their coldblooded operating of the logic of the war of attrition because the possibilities out the other end. I do not believe that if Russia responded with a kinetic strike against some facility in Germany or Poland or whatever, that that would stop NATO intervention in Ukraine. I don't I don't believe they would back off. I think that the political calls within those countries, the just just the way their societies work would instead escalate the war to a full-throated direct conflict, and, uh, that that is not in Russia's benefits. They still believe, you can call it Russia's own salami slicing tactic. Every day, a little bit less of Ukraine becomes Ukraine and becomes part of Russia. Every week, another five, six, seven settlements, a big settlement here becomes not Ukraine. That is happening. It is a real thing. And no matter how much they try to ignore it, it is it is happening. Uh, so I believe that the Europeans are not capable of providing the K regime with four 3 to 600 long range strike drones every day. I don't believe that their production is there. I think that they have saved up for this campaign for months, possibly for a year, and that it has a very limited. Zelensky himself talked about a 40-day campaign, right? They hope to do a level of economic and logistical damage with these attacks, but the real target is psychological, as it has always been, right? They want to psychologically affect first Trump to get them involved again, right? But also the Russian people, right? To make them despair and turn against the SMO and the Russian government. That has always been their hope. It was their hope with the existential economic war of sanctions back in 2022. Remember, the ruble is rubble and all of this other nonsense coming out of the Biden administration. It's the same now. They can't win on the battlefield. So, this is another asymmetric tactic. And it is, I'm telling you, at least I live in Moscow. I see what the real situation here. I know where Russia is stressed and where it is simply able to endure. 70% of this campaign is psychological.
>> Yeah.
>> Don't become a victim of that psychological campaign. The Kremlin, the Russian Ministry of Defense, as far as they're concerned, yes, some small and in the scope of a of the scale of this war, the number of civilian casualties, including Russian civilian casualties, while every death is tragic, is small. Russia has a history of conflicts where they've lost 30 million people in one conflict, right? They don't think in the same emotional terms about such things because this is an existential war for them, as they see it. Um, they some damage has been done, some economic, yes, if Russia can't refine, if they lose some portion of their refining capacity until repairs are completed, and I'm telling you, Russia is capable of an immense amount of regenerative, uh, uh, performance with their refinery, uh, uh, abilities. They just sell it as crude, they don't lose out. But you can't beat them that way because oil is still a finite commodity. And if refining capacity has gone down, as Bloomberg reported in June, Russia exported more crude oil than they have at any time in the last five years. You can't beat them that logic. It it just the the strategy doesn't add up. You can hurt them in one way, and then they just sell it in another way. They're not going to win the war this way. They're not going to pressure Russia to stop the war this way. They're pissing Russia off. They're in inflicting some some wounds, but it's nothing that is going to stop Russia from finishing that attrition war on their terms. For the moment, everything is still inside the box, as the Kremlin sees it. I know that's not emotionally satisfying to a lot of people out there, but I'm telling you all, be thankful that the same hot blood that pumps in your veins and demands that Russia punch NATO back directly in the face, that blood does not run in the veins of the people in the Kremlin. Iced water runs in their veins. They are coldblooded, calculating, strategic creatures, and we should all be thankful that they are.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Good point, Mark. And thank you so much for being with us today. Let me just bring it up. Please go to the boosty.to the real politic to support Mark. Yeah, it's right there on the right side, right below. You can find him. You you can find the address right below his name on the picture or on the right side, you see boosty again, boosty.to the real politic. You go there and follow Mark. I assume that you're not using your YouTube channel.
>> No, not since.
>> Go to the Mark's YouTube channel. He's not using that. Go to the boosty.to the real politic.
>> Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Thank you so much for being with us today.
>> Great pleasure as always.
>> Talk to you again soon.
>> Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.