Transcription
I want you to, I want you to do something for me right now. Before I said anything else, I want you to stop whatever you are doing and I want you to think back with me about 6 months ago. Maybe some of you were sitting in the same place watching one of my videos and I said something that a lot of people disagreed with. I said, "If the United States attacks Iran, this will not look anything like Venezuela." A lot of people pushed back. They said, "Professor, come on. The Americans have F-35s. They have carrier strike groups. They have precisiong guided munitions that can hit a target the size of a car from 30,000 ft. Iran is broke from decades of sanctions. This will be over in a few weeks." And I said, "No." I said, "This is a completely different kind of war. Today is July 12th, 2026. The United States has just completed its third round of air strikes on Iran. 140 targets hit in the past 48 hours. Over 300 targets total since this war began. Think about that number for a second. 300 targets. That is not a warning shot. That is a sustained large-scale military campaign. And what is Iran doing? Iran has officially closed the Strait of Hormuz. Not partially, not as a threat. Officially closed. The IRGC announced it. Quote, 'Until further notice, Iran is simultaneously firing missiles and drones at American military bases in five countries, Oman, Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain, all at once.' And then this morning at 10:00 local time in Tehran, Brigadier General Acromenia of the Iranian Army stepped in front of a camera and said something, something short, something that almost every major media outlet glossed over. He said, and I am going to quote this exactly because I want you to hear every single word. 'The Army's target bank has been updated and has the necessary readiness for all scenarios.' Let that sit. The target bank has been updated for all scenarios. I'm going to come back to that sentence because by the time I am done explaining what it actually means, I think a lot of you are going to see this entire conflict in a completely different way.
Here is my thesis for today and I am going to say it plainly right up front because I think you deserve to know where I am going before we get there. America walked into this war with the wrong mental model. A mental model that was built on their most recent success and that is precisely why it failed. Iran, meanwhile, has been executing a strategy they have been practicing for 47 years. And the evidence, the real evidence, not the bomb count, not the explosion footage, the structural evidence says Iran is winning the strategic war even as they absorb punishment on the tactical level. That is what we are going to unpack today. Let's go.
Here is where it all started and I need to take you back to January of 2026 to explain it. In January of this year, the Trump administration executed what can only be described as a textbook regime change in Venezuela. 48 hours. Maduro fled the country. The government collapsed. It was fast. It was decisive. And it worked. No major war. Nobody bags coming home. A clean geopolitical win for Washington. Now, I want you to put yourself inside the mind of Donald Trump and his national security team at that moment. You have just done what four previous administrations could not do. You have toppled a hostile regime without a ground invasion, without massive casualties using a combination of economic pressure, covert operations, and the credible threat of military force. You are feeling very good about yourself. And very naturally, very humanly, you start to think, if Venezuela, why not Iran? This right here is what I want to call the fatal assumption. The mistake that set the entire architecture of this war on a broken foundation. Venezuela and Iran are not the same thing. They are not even close to the same thing. And the failure to understand that difference is the single most consequential strategic error the United States has made in the Middle East in at least two decades.
Let me explain what I mean. Venezuela under Maduro was a prostate. A government whose entire economic survival depended on oil exports. When you squeeze the oil revenues through sanctions, you squeeze the government's ability to pay its military. When the military stops getting paid, the military stops fighting. The loyalty evaporates. The regime falls. This is a well understood mechanism. It is almost mechanistic. Apply enough pressure in the right place and the structure collapses. Iran is not a prostate. Iran is a civilization state. I want you to really hear that distinction. A civilization state is not a government that happens to control a territory. It is a society organized around a long-term civilizational identity with thousands of years of history, a coherent ideological framework, a population that has been psychologically and culturally prepared for sacrifice and institutions that were specifically designed to survive exactly the kind of pressure the United States is now applying. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been preparing for a war with the United States since 1979. That is 47 years. They have spent four and a half decades building underground tunnel networks to hide their military assets, dispersing their weapons caches so that no single strike can eliminate them. Training and equipping proxy forces in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza. Creating a ring of distributed military capability that extends across the entire region. Developing cheap, mass-producible drone technology specifically designed to overwhelm expensive American missile defense systems. Every Patriot missile interceptor cost about $3 million. Iran's drones cost a few thousand. Think about the economics of that for a second. This is not a country that stumbled into a war unprepared. This is a country that has been running a 47-year simulation of exactly this scenario. And now this simulation has become real. America walked in expecting Venezuela. They found something else entirely.
Expert analyst Harlon Olman and I want to emphasize this is an American strategist, not an Iranian apologist. Harlon Olman assessed the situation yesterday and said Iran appears to be strategically in a superior position. An American expert commenting on an American war after the United States has already dropped over 300 bombs and his conclusion is that Iran is in a superior strategic position. How does that happen? How do you absorb 300 air strikes and still end up in a stronger strategic position? That is the question and the answer is the second part of what I want to talk about today.
Both the United States and Iran are currently executing what military strategists call a fight and negotiate strategy, which means you keep fighting on the battlefield while simultaneously conducting diplomatic outreach. The guns are firing and the diplomats are talking at the same time. This is not a new strategy. It has a long history. The Vietnamese communists used it masterfully against the United States during the Vietnam War. They were fighting in the jungle and simultaneously negotiating in Paris. The goal was never to win militarily in the short term. The goal was to bleed the opponent, demonstrate resilience, create domestic political pressure inside the United States, and eventually negotiate from a position of strength. America is now trying to use that same strategy against Iran. Washington is dropping bombs through its military assets while simultaneously sending quiet diplomatic signals through Oman and Qatar. Iranian Foreign Minister Arachi is at the table. American diplomats are waiting for Iran to blink. It sounds logical. It sounds like a reasonable approach. But here is what the mainstream media is not telling you. Iran is playing this game better than America. And the reason is simple. Iran has been practicing this exact strategy since 1979. Think about every major confrontation Iran has been involved in over the past four decades. The hostage crisis, the Iran Iraq war, the negotiations over the nuclear program in 2015. Every single time Iran has combined military posturing with diplomatic engagement, they've been running this playbook over and over and over again. They know every move. They know every counter move. They know when to escalate and when to pause. They know how to read American domestic politics. They know how to time their actions to create maximum pressure at maximum leverage moments. America is playing this game for the first time at this scale. Iran has been playing it for nearly half a century.
But it gets even more interesting than that. Kenneth Kasman, one of the foremost Iran experts in the United States, currently with the Sufan Center, made an observation this week that I think is one of the most important analytical points anyone has made about this conflict so far. He noted that the hardline faction within the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is deliberately sabotaging the diplomatic progress being made by Foreign Minister Arashi. The hardliners want revenge for the death of Supreme Leader Kame. They do not want a deal. They want to punish America. And so even as Iraqi is sending consiliatory signals through back channels, the IRGC is firing missiles into Oman, Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Now, here is where most analysts stop. They say this is proof that Iran is divided. This is proof that there is internal chaos in Tehran. This is a sign of weakness. And I want to say to those analysts, with all due respect, you are looking at this exactly backwards. What you're describing is not chaos. What you're describing is a coordinated good cop bad cop strategy executed at the level of a nation state. Iraqi is the good cop. His message, we want peace. We are open to negotiation. Give us security guarantees and we will come to the table. The IRGC is the bad cop. Their message, missiles, drones, Hormas is closed. Your bases are targets. And when you run both of these simultaneously, what happens to the American negotiating position? Chaos, confusion. Washington does not know who is actually in charge. They do not know if a deal with Iraqi is worth anything if the IRGC will not honor it. They do not know whether to respond to the diplomatic track or the military track. They cannot do both effectively at the same time because the actions required for each contradict the other. You cannot bomb someone into wanting to negotiate with you. Every bomb you drop creates a new grievance, new domestic pressure inside Iran to retaliate. New reasons for the hardliners to say, "See, we told you America cannot be trusted."
Expert Thomas Warrick from the Atlantic Council put it bluntly. He said, "The gap between the two sides is too large." He is predicting that this conflict will settle into a cold war pattern flaring up and dying down repeatedly over and over potentially running all the way through the American midterm elections in November. Not a victory, not a resolution, a grind. And then there is a statement from Galibbah, the speaker of the Iranian parliament who posted on X this week, short, direct. I'm going to read it exactly. "The era of one-sided deals is over. Keep your word or pay the price." That is not the language of a government on the verge of collapse. That is not the language of a regime that is frightened. That is the language of a government that believes it is in a position of strength. And the question we have to ask and answer honestly is, are they right?
Now, I want to stop here for a moment because I know what a lot of you are thinking and I want to address it directly. Some of you are going to say, "Professor, you are losing me. America has conducted over 300 air strikes. Iran's air defense systems have been partially destroyed. Their nuclear infrastructure has been damaged. Their economy is in freefall. People are suffering inside Iran. How can you possibly say Iran is in a superior strategic position? Doesn't military power still matter?" And my answer is yes. Absolutely yes. Military power matters enormously. And if we are measuring purely on the tactical level, on the level of bombs dropped, targets destroyed, physical damage inflicted, then the United States is winning clearly, significantly. There's no question about that. But I need you to hold two thoughts in your head at the same time. Thought number one, America is winning tactically. Thought number two, tactical victory and strategic victory are completely different things. And history, the same history I keep coming back to because it keeps proving the same lesson. History is absolutely littered with examples of powers that won every single battle and still lost the war. America won almost every major military engagement in Vietnam. Tactically, the kill ratios, the firepower, the technology, America dominated. And yet, America withdrew in 1975, having achieved none of its strategic objectives. The same pattern played out in Afghanistan. 20 years, trillions of dollars, enormous tactical military superiority, and the Taliban was back in Cabo within weeks of the American withdrawal. I am not saying Iran is going to defeat America militarily. I am saying the question of who wins this war cannot be answered by counting bomb craters. It has to be answered by asking who achieves their strategic objectives at an acceptable cost. And right now that question does not have a clear answer in America's favor.
Which brings me to the third and final piece of today's analysis. The piece that I think most people are completely missing. The piece that is in my view the most important signal of where this conflict is actually heading. Let's go back to that statement from this morning. The army's target bank has been updated and has the necessary readiness for all scenarios. I want to explain what this actually means, not in a political sense. In a technical military sense because I think when you understand what a target bank is, this statement becomes a great deal more significant. In military planning, a target bank is not a wish list. It is not vague aspirational rhetoric. A target bank is a detailed operational database of potential strike targets. Each target in the bank has been surveiled, geoloccated with precision coordinates, analyzed for its strategic value, and matched to a specific weapon system capable of destroying it. The attack plan has been written. The execution sequence has been rehearsed. Everything is preloaded and ready. When a military says its target bank has been updated, they're not saying we can find targets if we need to. They're saying we already have the targets. We already have the plans. We already have the capability. We are waiting for the order. And when they say updated, they are saying we have incorporated the new information. We have watched what America has been doing for the past week. We have identified what has changed and we have adjusted our plans accordingly. And when they say for all scenarios, they are sending a message to every decision maker in Washington, in Tel Aviv, in Riad, in Doha, and Amad in Quake City. Every scenario you are considering, we have already gamed it out. Increased air strikes, we have a plan. Attempt to blockade our ports, we have a plan. Ground invasion, we have a plan. Israel joins the campaign directly, we have a plan. The GCC countries allow their territory to be used as a staging ground, we have a plan. And you are in it. That is what that sentence means.
And it connects directly to what is happening in the straight of Hormuz right now, which is a second thing nobody is talking about seriously enough. Ian Robby, a maritime strategy expert at the Center for Maritime Strategy, said something this week that stopped me cold. He said, "Iran is trying to do something no one has ever done in the straight before." Think about that. In the entire modern history of the straight of Hormuz, in all the decades of tension and confrontation in that waterway, no one has ever done what Iran is doing right now. They are not simply blocking the straight. They are not just saying no ships pass. They are implementing what Robbie describes as a permission and payment scheme by force. What that means is this. If you want to move your oil tanker through the straight of Hormuz, you need to request permission from Iran and you will need to pay. Iran is positioning itself not as a nation that is closing an international waterway in an act of desperation, but as a sovereign authority that controls access to that waterway like a toll boot operator. Except the Tobut operator has missiles. 20% of the world's oil supply passes through that straight every single day. What Iran is doing is not an act of war in the traditional sense. What Iran is doing is an attempt to permanently restructure the geopolitical order in the Persian Gulf. They are trying to establish by force a new reality, one in which Iran has effective sovereign authority over one of the most strategically important choke points on the planet. This is the chess move that no one is talking about cuz everyone is looking at the explosions, the missile strikes, the drone footage, the bomb craters. And while everyone is watching the explosions, Iran is quietly attempting to redraw the rules of the game.
And here is the trap that America is in. The structural trap that connects everything I've talked about today. To stop what Iran is doing in Hormuz, you cannot do it from the air. You cannot bomb your way to reopening a straight when the country controlling it has its military assets dispersed across underground networks that have been hardened over 47 years. You need ground forces. You need a naval operation combined with a ground campaign. Which means the next escalation question is not whether America drops more bombs. The next escalation question is whether America puts boots on the ground. And that is the question that is sitting on every decision maker's desk in Washington right now. And it is a question that nobody in this administration wants to answer because the only way out of a trap is through a door that nobody wants to open.
So let me give you my three predictions, concrete, specific, checkable. Write these down if you want. Come back to this video in 60 days and tell me whether I was right or wrong. Prediction number one, the Strait of Hormuz will not be fully reopened for at least 3 months, possibly longer. Here's my reasoning. Iran has not closed Hormuz as a temporary tactical move. Iran has closed Hormuz as a negotiating instrument. They are not going to reopen it when America tells them to. They are going to reopen it if and when they have extracted a concrete verifiable concession from the American side. Security guarantees, sanctions relief, some form of recognition that changes Iran's strategic position in a meaningful and durable way. In any negotiation, the person who makes the first concession from a position of leverage loses that leverage. Iran will not open Hormuz first. And America cannot accept Iran's terms without appearing to reward aggression, which means we are looking at a prolonged standoff in one of the most economically critical waterways on earth. Watch the oil markets. Watch the shipping insurance rates. Those number will tell you the real story of how the world is reading this situation.
Prediction number two, the Trump Netanyahu relationship is going to fracture and that fracture is going to become visible and significant within the next 60 days. This is the hidden fault line in the American position that almost nobody is discussing. Benjamin Netanyahu wants total destruction of Iran's military and nuclear capability. He wants a campaign that does not stop until the Islamic Republic is no longer a functional threat to Israel. That is his objective. That is the only outcome he considers acceptable. Donald Trump wants a deal, not necessarily a good deal, not necessarily a comprehensive deal, a deal he can stand in front of a camera and call a win. A deal he can take into the 2026 midterms and say, "I ended the conflict. I brought stability. I am the dealmaker." These two objectives are structurally incompatible. You cannot simultaneously pursue total destruction of Iran and negotiate a face-saving exit with Iran. The actions required for one strategy actively undermine the other. Netanyahu will push for escalation. Trump will resist not out of moral conviction but out of political calculation. And when that tension becomes public, and it will become public, it will create exactly the kind of signal that Iran's negotiators will exploit. Watch for unusually tur or vague joint statements from Washington and Tel Aviv. Watch for any reports of scheduled delays or cancellations in high level consultations. Those will be the early signals that the alliance is developing stress fractures.
Prediction number three, the question of American ground troops will reach critical mass before November, but the decision will be delayed until after the midterms unless Iran forces the timeline. Here's the logic. The current air campaign is producing tactical results but not strategic resolution. At some point, if Iran continues to hold Hormus, continues to attack regional bases and continues its fight negotiate strategy, the military pressure on the White House to escalate further becomes enormous. The joint chiefs will present options. Some of those options will involve ground forces. Trump does not want to deploy ground troops before November because the American public, based on every available polling indicator, does not want another land war in the Middle East. The political cost of that decision before a midterm election is enormous. But Iran knows this. And Iran's strategists are not idiots. They understand the American political calendar as well as any Washington insider. And there is a real possibility, I would say a significant probability that Iran will calibrate its escalation specifically to stay below the threshold that forces Trump's hand before November. Not so restrained that America gets a free pass. Not so aggressive that Trump has no political choice but to go in precisely calibrated, precisely controlled, exactly above the pain threshold, exactly below the response threshold. That is the knife sedge Iran is walking right now. And from what I can see, they are walking it deliberately.
Before I close, I want to give you one assignment. One thing I want you to do this week, for the next seven days, track two sources side by side. Source one, whatever Iranian foreign minister Iraqi says publicly, his statements, his interviews, his diplomatic language. Source two, whatever the IRGC and Iranian military commanders say publicly, their statements, their announcements, their operational declarations. You are going to notice something very interesting. These two voices are going to sound like they are coming from two completely different governments. Iraqi will speak the language of diplomacy, conditions, frameworks, security guarantees, the desire for resolution. The IRGC will speak the language of force, targets, readiness, escalation, revenge. Most analysts will look at this and say, "See, Iran is internally divided. Iran is chaotic. Iran cannot speak with one voice." I want you to look at it differently. I want you to ask, what would be the strategic advantage of having two different voices saying two completely different things simultaneously? Who benefits from the confusion this creates in Washington's decision-making process. When you can answer that question, you are thinking like a strategist and you will understand this conflict at a level that goes far deeper than anything you will see in the mainstream news coverage.
Let me bring this home. We have covered three things today. First, America made a foundational strategic error by treating Iran like Venezuela. Venezuela was a pro state with a government sustained by oil revenues. Iran is a civilization state with 47 years of preparation for exactly this moment. The mental model was wrong from the beginning. Second, both sides are running a fight and negotiate strategy. But Iran has been executing this playbook since 1979. They know every move. They are running the good cop bad cop dynamic through Iraqi and the IRGC simultaneously creating strategic confusion in Washington that is undermining the American negotiating position even as American bombs continue to fall. Third, the statement about the target bank combined with the unprecedented permission and payment scheme Iran is implementing in Hormuz is not a sign of desperation. It is a sign of a country that is trying to permanently restructure the strategic reality of the Persian Gulf and doing so from a position of prepared, calculated, long-term strength. America is winning the tactical war, Iran is winning the strategic positioning battle. And unless something changes structurally, unless one side makes a dramatic miscalculation or the domestic political situation in either country shifts dramatically, we are looking at a prolonged conflict with no clean exit. That is the honest assessment, not the optimistic American version, not the triumphalist Iranian version, the structural truth. History does not care about how many bombs we drop. History cares about who changes the facts on the ground in a durable, lasting way. Right now, the facts on the ground are being changed by the country that has been preparing for this moment for nearly half a century. And that country is not the United States.
I will continue to follow the situation and update you as it develops. These are fastm moving events. Things will change. Assessments will need to be revised. That is how honest analysis works. You hold your conclusions loosely and you update when the evidence demands it. But the structural framework I have given you today, the Venezuela miscalculation, the fight negotiate asymmetry, the target bank as strategic signal, these are not going to change. These are the loadbearing walls of how this conflict is being fought. If this analysis gave you a perspective you did not have before, share it with someone who needs it. Not because I need the views, but because the world makes better decisions when more people are thinking clearly about what is actually happening. I will see you in the next.