Transcription
Welcome back. A live look at the Strait of Hormuz, courtesy of Marine Traffic. We have a question here. What's the likelihood we'll see even further expansion of the war in Iran? That's the question on our mind after the Iranians restarted the fighting this week with a surprise attack on US forces in Jordan, and then Saudi forces for the first time joining US strikes in Iraq afterward.
So, this depiction of the Strait of Hormuz, and since we're talking about the Saudis, we've been talking about the Saudis and the Houthis quite a bit lately. This is the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This is another, uh, critical waterway that we may be discussing quite a bit moving forward here.
Meanwhile, President Trump today telling Fox News that we're, quote, "going to beat the effing s out of them. We'll be hitting them hard. He said they're going to get a beating." Let's check in with Professor Alone Bursting. He's here with me. He's the host of the Israel Palestine Report. And Alone, as always, there is a lot going on tonight. Um, let's start with this latest post from US Central Command. They just put this out, saying, "Forces began launching strikes against Iran at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time. The strikes are a powerful response to yesterday's attempted Iranian attacks on US forces based in the Middle East."
So, Alone, I guess, uh, my big question here tonight, and for anybody that's watching this on YouTube a little bit later tonight, we're having this conversation just past 9:30 Eastern time. So, it's been about 90 minutes since this operation began. I know you're clued in and you're, you're wired into what's happening on the ground through leaks and, and what we're hearing from sources that are closer to the action. Uh, are we seeing that these strikes are still being carried out? What level of clarity do we have on that?
Thank you for having me, Austin. From what we've seen, at least in the last, I'd say an hour or so, like you said, it's right around 9:35 p.m. Eastern time now. Um, in the last hour, there have not been any more reports of air defense systems being activated. Where the attacks took place tonight is significant because it clues us into how the United States, at least as far as it's concerned, how it's viewing the current return to fighting. You know, we'll talk, maybe we'll talk in a moment about what happened in the last several days. If we just go back to tonight, what we had after this pause is the United States carrying out attacks. And despite all the rhetoric, despite the increasing threats, despite Trump talking about obliterating and a return in bridges and power plants, the actual attacks that took place tonight, according to reports on the ground, are pretty much mirroring the same levels of attacks that we've seen over the last two weeks.
If you zoom it back to me in the big screen, I'll try to zoom in here. And where most of the attacks have happened over the last, again, two hours have been in and around the Strait of Hormuz again. We've had attacks at Sirk over here, Jas, Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, these other, these other smaller islands over here. And then we had another attack that was reported in the areas of Afaz, this area up here. But all of those are connected to the waterway. All of those are connected to the Persian Gulf and to the Strait of Hormuz. We have not seen attacks escalating to what we, at least Trump was implying might happen, which includes power plants, which includes Pickaxe Out Mountain, which includes all kinds of other targets either north of Iran or in the northeastern, northwestern parts of Iran. We haven't seen any of that, at least yet.
I will say there's all kinds of sporadic reports come out, come out now and then from basically activists on the ground that are saying that air defense systems have been operated here and there. So we've had a report in the last 24 hours of air defense systems that were operated into Tehran, in the capital. We had another report of air defense systems being operated somewhere near Iraq over here. But in all those cases, no one took responsibility for any attack and there's no reports of attacks on the ground. That doesn't mean there wasn't an attempted attack. Air defense systems could be operated against a drone. Could be an Israeli drone. Could be an American drone. Could be spy drones. Could be a lot of things. It doesn't mean necessarily an immediate escalation. But it's an indication of the tensions. It's an indication of the tensions and how high tensions are running right now. But somewhat surprisingly, despite all the rhetoric leading up to the weekend when Trump and Israel were already talking about a full-on return to fighting, and now with the bombastic days, they're going to be hit hard. So far, the targets are pretty much a repeat of the same types of targets that we've seen every night over the last two weeks.
>> So, all of this, we're talking about this because the new round of fighting has begun. Iran began that new round of fighting. What's the train of thought as to why they might have started this most recent exchange?
>> So, it's a great question because a lot of people and a lot of analysts also have been surprised when we look at what happened over the last three weeks. We've now had this escalation. The breakdown of the ceasefire happened three weeks ago. It happened when Iran fired at three commercial vessels going through the Omani Pass in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States canceled the saying the lifting of sanctions or reinstated the sanctions and started bombing, and then we had this escalation. And it was really leading up to this last weekend. What happened all of a sudden on Sunday night? The guns went silent. The guns went silent. The United States, without saying anything, just did not attack that night. And as a result, Iran, without saying anything, did not attack Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, all the places they've been attacking, did not attack them either. No one knew what happened. Lots of speculation. There's a lot of reports that, um, Trump was told that the United States does not have enough interceptors, and that's why that's been denied, but others have confirmed it. And no one really knew what happened.
And then Iran put out an interesting message on Sunday night. They put out an interesting message and they said, "Silence will be met with silence." That is essentially a code that's used in the Middle East. Israel's done this a lot with Hezbollah and Hamas that says, "If you don't fire, we don't fire. We don't have an agreement. If you don't fire, we don't fire." And that's what happened Sunday. That's what happened Monday. And then all of a sudden, Iran fired again. All of a sudden, Iran carried out this four or five, depends who you believe, ballistic missiles that were fired from Iran, targeting this base in Jordan. Why did they do that?
So, firstly, we have to consider the timing. If we, there's a reason I brought up what happened three weeks ago. Three weeks ago, when Iran attacked those commercial vessels, it was in the middle of a meeting between Trump and NATO leaders. When they carried out this attack on Tuesday, it was several hours after the meeting between Netanyahu and Trump. This is symbolic for them. This is sending a message. This is saying, "While you can meet, you Trump can meet with the other leaders and think you're going to decide the fate of the war, we're going to decide the fate of the war. We're going to be the ones that decide when there's firing, when there's not." So, that's one reason.
A second reason is Iran is trying to come out on top at the end of this war. They, through the memorandum of understanding, they're hoping to get a lot of control over the Strait of Hormuz, and they're trying to show that they can carry out attacks whenever they want. And they've been testing the waters since Sunday. Their militias were firing drones from Iraq at Saudi Arabia, at Jordan, at Kuwait, and according to some reports, at Israel also. And they were testing to see if the United States would retaliate. The United States did not. So this was just an escalation. It was pushing the needle even further to test, "Can we occasionally fire at the United States? The United States will absorb it." Second reason.
But the third reason, and this is the one that I think is often ignored, and you have heard me to say this, when it comes to the Middle East and wars in general, probably a hundred times over the last three years, we want to understand how a country or entity operates. Look to internal politics within Iran. There is a constant push and pull happening right now between two main factions. One of them is led by Ahmed Wahedi. He is the head of the Revolutionary Guards. And the other is led by the president. Pashan would like things to spiral down. He is an economist at heart. He's desperate to rebuild Iran's economy. Wants it to spiral down. The Revolutionary Guards want things to escalate. And I would read this mostly as a push and pull within the internal politics of Iran. The Revolutionary Guard saying, "You may say silence will be met with silence, but when we want, we'll fire." That's how I read this more than anything else. It's part of the internal politics that happened within Iran that then projects, obviously, elsewhere.
Then we'll see now where it goes. Iran carried out that attack. The United States responded by not, not by attacking Iran. The United States retaliated first by attacking the militias in, in Iraq, a pretty substantial attack. Now they've attacked Iran. Iran will probably against Kuwait. And now the sides will have to decide. Are they going to go back to talking, or are they going to just have a repeat of what we had the last three weeks? Random bombings happening each night without any measurable results on either side.
>> So, um, there's been a number of headlines that have come through, and I appreciate the insight on, on what may be going on on the Iranian side. Hopefully, time will tell and give us a little more clarity. Um, but for now, uh, we'll keep watching and we'll keep eyeing social media to see if there's any developments in real time relating to the strikes, uh, that the US is carrying out tonight. Okay. Um, let's go to this reporting. A lot of people have been asking about the Egypt situation. To catch anybody up who's not clued in, a drone hit a US-owned gas storage tanker at Egypt's Mediterranean port of Damietta. This is according to a British security firm. And Reuters is reporting this. President Trump was asked about this today. He said that he was briefed on this situation, and then he warned that the US would respond forcefully if Iran continues to escalate tensions. Um, where is this port, Alone? Uh, is this a significant event? This, this, um, situation in Egypt's Mediterranean port of Damietta? I, I actually have an image here. Um, there's a yellow peg that kind of shows where it is in relation to Israel and in relation to Iran. And, uh, if you can, Alone, give us some insight, how important does this situation feel?
>> So, I'll say that right now, no one has claimed responsibility for that attack. None of the militias in Iraq, not Iran, none of the militias that are backed by Iran in Syria, nor have the Houthis claimed responsibility. That's significant because it tells us that someone wanted to send a message but didn't want to fall on escalation. If you send a drone, suicide drone, an attack drone, but don't actually claim responsibility, you're saying, "I don't want a retaliation now. I just want you to remember that I'm here." But what's really the question is, who is trying to bring Egypt into the array and who is trying to send that signal? Again, it's speculation. No one's claimed responsibility, but honestly, my first instinct would have been this would have been from the Houthis because the Houthis want Egypt to be pressured.
If we look at the map here, if you want to put it back to me, I'll try to zoom out on the Middle East a little bit and give some perspective. So here we have Iran and here we have the Strait of Hormuz. And then over here we have Yemen and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This is where the Houthis are, have a choke point. And this waterway that leads into the Red Sea. Then all of the commerce that goes through here, unless it stops in Saudi Arabia, goes up and goes through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean. The port that was attacked was up here. It was up here right near the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal is a major source of revenue for Egypt. Give or take 10 to 12% of the world's maritime commerce goes through there. Each and every one of them pay tax to Egypt for using that strait because unlike the Strait of Hormuz where there's an area that is international waters, this goes directly through solely Egyptian territorial waters and therefore everyone pays a toll.
When the Houthis block the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the ones that suffer are mostly Egypt. They are the ones that their economy comes under stress. They're the ones that way back when in 2024, when Biden launched the coalition against the Houthis to break the siege, it was Egypt that was pressuring Biden saying, "You got to end this. You have to make sure the Houthis stop their chokehold." I would estimate that the ones that have the most gain from firing that drone at Egypt are the Houthis as a way of saying, "Not only can we choke off the Red Sea, we can also very easily start bombing your territory also." Egypt has a very, very powerful position in the Arab League. It has a very, very good connection to a lot of European countries. And chances are, again, it's speculation on my part, that it was the Houthis. But chances are, whoever did this, whether it was the Houthis or anyone else, wanted Egypt to be stressed, wanted Egypt to be another voice that is screaming at Trump saying, "Just give Iran what it wants in order to end the situation. We can't have another two or three months of these escalations."
>> I got to ask you about one more thing before we go here, Alone. This was another report. Reuters had this. They had this exclusively. Iran is expected to receive within weeks a first shipment out of up to 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air defense missile launchers as it rebuilds its defenses amid the war with the United States. Alone, does this make sense? President Trump was asked about this today, and he said that if this report is true, it would be surprising. I mean, it's hard to know. Iran has tried very hard to ally itself with anyone who is against US hegemony in the world. We've seen Iran join into an alliance with Russia already when Russia was fighting Ukraine. We then saw Ukraine carry an attack against Iran. Iran was threatening to retaliate against Ukraine or European targets. China's in this game also. So far in the war, China has played a very neutral stance. They have been very critical, but mostly what their role has been to threaten the United States and say, "You can play your siege on the Hormuz all you want. You're not stopping our ships. If you stop our ships, we have a problem." And the United States very quietly let all the Chinese ships pass through the siege the United States had imposed.
Meanwhile, Iran has been working very hard to try to create, to position itself almost as the forward command of the anti-US allies. So, China and Russia, the forward command in the Middle East, essentially to rival Cold War politics, to rival Israel and the modern Arab countries that are allied with the United States. I will also say that when the war broke out throughout the month of March and part of April, there were a lot of reports that Iran had found a way to bypass a lot of its exports through the sea because it was using an old train route that was going through the northern parts of Iran, through Turkmenistan and all kinds of areas of Uzbekistan, if we look up here, going through all of these, partly, part of them going to India and part of them going up there to China. That is not nearly as efficient as using, um, the maritime route. That doesn't mean that Iran has not been taking advantage of it. But I would not be surprised. I don't know, obviously, if shore-mounted air defense missiles are being sent or not, but it would not surprise me at all if Iran was doing everything, including outbidding a lot of people, to solidify right now a stronger relationship with China. Because if this ends tonight, or if this ends in a month, or if this ends in six months, Iran now wants to be their country in the Middle East that's funded by them, that they want to keep strong to keep the United States on their toes. They want to position themselves in a stronger position, and they're doing everything they can to do that. And it's not going to surprise me if that report is true, or if at least some aspects of it are true.
>> Alone. Always appreciate the analysis. How can people keep up with your content and your courses?
>> Look me up on YouTube, Israel Palestine Report. You can also go to my website, AloneBursting.com. Lots of webinars we have going on and lots of analyses of the Middle East. Always happy to see anyone there who wants to learn.
>> All right, we'll see you soon, Alone. Thanks. Have a good night.
>> Have a good night.