Transcription
Everybody, Peter Z here coming to you from Colorado. Uh, we're at war. Um, a couple of hours ago Eastern time, the Trump administration opened up a broad assault against a number of targets across the country of Iran. Uh, right now there are two carriers on station as well as a large amount of supplementary um aircraft. Uh, and it seems to be a full-throated attempt to overthrow the government and destroy as much military hardware as possible.
There have been direct strikes on at least 20 different cities and on top of that, uh, at least a half a dozen positions that the Iranians use for naval power projection, as well as pretty much every missile storage facility they have and all the drone facilities as well. Uh, damage reports are not coming in yet in any meaningful way, but we already have at least thousands killed, probably approaching 10,000. The IRGC, which is kind of their paramilitary arm that is mostly concerned with domestic control, has been hit the hardest. The Minister of Defense is already confirmed dead, as are many members of the Iranian Security Council. Um, the Israelis are participating in the attack as well, and a lot of the Israeli effort went specifically into targeting the Iranian leadership. It is not at the present believed that the president or the Ayatollah himself were killed, but the residents certainly have been. Uh, definitely ongoing situation.
A few things that we do know and some things to watch for. Uh, number one, in Iran, keep in mind that there's over 10,000 members of the political class. They're all mull. And so even if you were able to take out the entire parliament and all of the leadership in the administrative government, that does not collapse the government. Uh, that's one of the reasons why both the Israelis and the Americans are now calling for a direct rise up of the population to overthrow what is left on the other side of this. Historically speaking, that has generated the opposite response. We will see.
Uh, second, military equipment. At the moment, there's no signs that the Americans and the Israelis are going after, uh, Iran's drone production capacity specifically for the Shaheds, but that's very, very early and that's a logical target. And if those go down, um, that ends, uh, the Russian ability to use these sort of weapons in the Ukraine war, which has become their primary method of targeting power systems in civilian areas in Ukrainian cities. So if that happens, really big impact there.
Third, there's no sign at the present that the United States or Israel is going after the energy sector, which makes sense. Uh, you do command and control, you do radars first, you go after the missiles, you go after the aircraft. All of that has happened. Um, but so far, Carg Island, which is the economic node that makes Iran possible in the modern age where 90% of their oil exports flow through, is still operating. There has been a report of an explosion. It's not clear if that was because of an attack. Keep in mind, it wouldn't take much to take this thing offline. There's no bridge connecting it to the mainland, and the Iranians are not the ones who built it in the first place.
Uh, fourth, uh, this is the first military operation in the last 40 years that the administration, any administration, has carried out without first going to Congress. So according to Congress, uh, this is very clearly a violation of the War Powers Act, where the president is supposed to give Congress notice as to what's happening, then he has 90 days to so se so it up before going back to Congress. Uh, this administration, like all before, have said that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. But every president till now has still abided by it to avoid the throw down with Congress. This, the Trump administration, this round is the first administration to not do that. And we already have a number of senators on both sides of the aisle who are screaming bloody murder about the misappropriation of American power.
Um, this has only been going on for a couple of hours. Considering the amount of hardware and weapons that the United States has in theater, it can probably maintain this pace for a week, maybe two, and then it's a question of what the broader goals happen to be. A collapse of the government in Iran is not particularly likely without a ground force. And there is no provision so far with the American deployment for a ground force of any type. It's about grinding down military capabilities.
Now, Iran is at the weakest it has been for the last 30 to 40 years because its oil exports have been so low, only about a million barrels a day. It has lost the capacity to support all of its militant operations, uh, with its allies across the broader region, and a lot of them have been defanged in other operations, most notably by the Israelis. So, this is a good moment to try to push, but keep in mind that the nuclear program, which is one of the things the Trump administration, any American administration has been concerned about for decades, is dispersed. It's hardened, and we're going to find out real quick whether or not, uh, the United States military has the power to do something about that.
Uh, in the past, presidents have decided it wasn't worth the risk. Because while Iran always had a nuclear program, it never had a nuclear weapon. And according to the rhetoric of the Trump administration, the Biden administration, the George W. Bush administration, the Obama administration, you know, going back all the way to Clinton, uh, the Iranians wanted breakout potential. They wanted the ability to assemble a weapon quickly if they felt they needed to. Well, now they need to, and we're going to find out which of these intelligence assessments is the accurate one, good and hard, real fast.
Uh, one final thing. This is the first American military operation in which we are using a large number of one-way drones. I don't have technical specs on that. I will be looking for that because it would be the first sign that the US military, in a very big way, is starting to convert its offensive arsenal from Tomahawk missiles, which are in play, precision munitions dropped by jets, which are in play, and now also including drones. So, a lot going on. More to come.