Transcription
Most Americans probably weren't aware that we are on the verge of a massive regional war in the Middle East, if not a third world war. We are the largest movement of American military hardware, uh, is since 2003, the Iraq invasion, uh, is now in or steaming toward the Persian Gulf off Iran, preparatory to what could be the aforementioned war.
Now, most people, once again, probably didn't know this. Those who did know it weren't for it. The recent polls on this question, "Are you for a war with Iran?" It's about one in five Americans support it. The rest are probably asking, "War with Iran? Why do we have a war with Iran?" They said, "No idea."
Um, the president did address it last night in his State of the Union, um, and at a press conference. And he said in public what he basically says in private. Trump being one of those rare public figures who's pretty much the same behind closed doors as he is on stage. Says pretty much the same stuff. He's a little funnier in private, but basically he's not a different guy. He's the same guy. And he's been saying the same thing about Iran for a long time. Really two things. One, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. He says it again and again. He really means it. That's not a talking point. It's completely sincere. And two, I would prefer a negotiated settlement. I prefer peace rather than war. And that's obviously true.
So, to bottom line, where we are right now at the end of February 2026 on this looming Iran war seems likely. Have all those aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, planes ready, missiles ready, but it's not certain because the president hasn't decided to do it. And you may not get that impression either from watching the news. There is the sense that it's inevitable, and that's kind of a scop actually designed to make you think there's nothing you can do about it. No, Trump has not decided to do this. Again, seems likely. All the momentum is in that direction, but the president's the sole decider on this question. He's the commander-in-chief, and he's showing no obvious signs of enthusiasm. And why would he?
There are a lot of reasons not to do this. The first being the one just mentioned, which is most Americans don't want it. And though it's not a direct democracy, it's a form of democracy, and you probably shouldn't commit history-changing acts without the support of your people. And Trump feels that way. This is someone who pays very close attention to, say, TV ratings. Why is that? Not just because he worked in TV, but because he thinks they're a pretty good measure of what people are interested. He cares about what people think, and he's willing to listen to almost anybody. So that's a good reason not to do it. The public's not behind you. Maybe you've got great reasons to do it that they don't know about yet, but we haven't heard those, and the president hasn't really explained them other than to say Iran is bad. Yes, that's been the official US position since 1979. Iran can have nukes. That's always been the president's position, and we would like some kind of settlement.
The reason he's not eager to start this war is because he, in general, isn't eager to start wars. Hasn't been anyway, but because this would be a particularly tough war. This is the largest buildup since the Iraq war, but Iran is not Iraq. It's much, much, much bigger and much more technologically advanced. Population of Iran's about 92 million. In 2003, almost exactly 23 years ago, when we rolled into Baghdad, the population of Iraq was 25 million. So Iran is more than three times bigger. The land mass of Iran is multiple six times bigger. It's huge. It's a huge, pretty advanced country compared to Iraq. So that's a problem right there. This is a serious thing to start a war with a real country.
Are we in a position to do that? Well, there's some debate about that. The US military performs in a remarkable way under certain circumstances. But is the US military right now ready for a prolonged conflict with a big country? Hm. No, it turns out. And these are facts taken from open-source material that have been published. They're on the internet. You can look it up. None of this is classified. This is all out there. But current estimates suggest that the United States is so low on some munitions, partly because we've used them in the defense of Israel already in the last 12 months. But whatever the cause, the United States is so low on certain kinds of munitions that were we to have even a brief but intense engagement with Iran, our military would not be ready for like 10 years to fight a real war against, you know, a peer or near-peer adversary. So out the window would go any hope of defending Taiwan.
Whether or not this is a good idea is kind of, you know, up to you to decide. But that would not even be on the table because we wouldn't be able to. We would be much weakened by this because we don't have the stockpiles and we don't have the necessary industrial capacity to replace them quickly. So, we are not in a position to have a lengthy engagement, and everyone at the Pentagon who's gaming this out understands that. And again, this has been reported publicly, though not necessarily in the New York Times or the Washington Post, at least not on the front page, but it's widely known. So, it'd be a tough war. We're not in a great place to fight it right now.
And the potential downsides are absolutely real. Lots of things could happen. There are tens of thousands of Americans in the region, of course, in uniform and out. They could be hurt or killed. There's Israel, our ally, which is probably a little more vulnerable than we pretend it is to conventional attacks from ballistic missiles. Do the math on how many missiles Iran is believed to have versus how many anti-ballistic missiles Israel has or we have to defend Israel. H, they could be in trouble.
And then there's the question of what happens to Iran? Like, does it fall apart? Does it disintegrate as a country? To be clear, as of tonight, there is no Israeli plan for what comes the day after we depose the Ayatollah, knock out the leadership of the country. What happens then? Going to put in the former king's son or something? No one believes that's real. Will the country hang together with Palavi on the throne? Come on. No one is thinking this through because the people pushing this clearly don't care what happens after. The point is to take out Iran as a coherent country, not to protect Israel, but in order to sweep Iran aside as a regional rival. Once Iran is gone, there's no question as to who controls the Middle East. It, of course, would be the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, Israel. Period. That's the reason.
The problem is if the country were to disintegrate, the downstream effects would be profound for everybody else. You would likely have refugee crises. Where would they go? Well, Europe. They haven't enough refugees. They might go right across the water to Qatar or UAE. Oh, that could be a huge, huge problem.
So, why would they push for this? Well, you have to think that the people pushing for this are not stupid. They've thought through the consequences. Let's say the United States attacks Iran. Maybe Iran just says, you know, you're absolutely right. We're evil. We're rolling over. Everybody in charge is going to retire, commit ritual suicide. We're going to turn it over to some Western Democrat who brings in pro-choice politics and gay marriage. And like, we're cool. We're going to join NATO at that point. Great.
But what if Iran decides better to die on your feet than on your knees and just unleashes its conventional arsenal against American assets in the region, against Israel, and critically against energy infrastructure in the Gulf? What would happen then? Well, you would see a global depression if they did that. If they were successful in doing that, if the extraction facilities and refineries and petrochemical plants in the Gulf were disabled, how expensive would oil be per barrel? How much would gasoline cost? What would steel go for? What would happen to liquefied natural gas, which goes to both Europe and China? What would happen to Europe if you disrupted the flow of LNG from the Gulf to Europe? What would happen if you closed the Straits of Hormuz, the choke point at the end of the Persian Gulf? I mean, wouldn't destroy the world forever, probably, but it would tank the economy in the meantime, for sure. And who would suffer most? Well, let's see. The Gulf States, Europe, and the United States. It's kind of weird that anybody, especially an ally, would push for a conflict that's almost guaranteed to hurt its so-called allies. Why would you do that? You can tell me you love me, but if you're encouraging me to commit suicide, you're probably lying. It's possible that we should judge people's intentions by the effects of what they do, not by their own description of their motive.
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