Transcription
I'm doing very well. Pleasure to see you again. Uh, it's great to see you and congratulations for you kept pushing that uh, the interceptor problem was going to be a big problem. Be a big problem. And um, um, I'm going to put one tick in the Mario box here.
I'm I don't get ticks. I don't know why I never get ticks. But thank you. I wish uh, well, I'm not I'm not gonna I'm sorry I won't be able to say it's gonna be like super long-lasting. I do want to acknowledge I do want to acknowledge and you work so hard Mario and you've done so much to try to stop this war.
Oh my goodness. I uh, I am expecting that optimism to end in the next 45 minutes. Unfortunately, we're heading to a dark path, but it is really uh, we we need you there. We need you to constantly keep us on the uh, that there is some possible light at the end of the tunnel, even if it's a, even if it's a train coming right at us.
I've um, I've always been under the belief that the interceptor problem, which is what Vance Cooper and Dan Kaine informed Trump about, and according to reports, that's what convinced him to cancel the strikes. I've always thought this was enough to first not be here in the first place, the MOU being enough, but second to ensure this is not a prolonged war. However, I've referenced our last discussion a lot. I've mentioned it in many of my other interviews.
No, I know that's great. I love the fact that you interrogate and you not not just with me, but others. This is the University of Chicago way. I call it intellectual Darwinism, the survival of the best ideas.
But I want to I want to dig into that. I think that idea now is more important than ever because this is the factor that everyone's hoping will end this war. And you've explained last time briefly on why it's not as important as many people believe. And I'm mainly focusing not on the strike, the long-range precision missiles. I'm focusing on the interceptors that are there to defend the American bases.
Oh, and the Gulf as a whole. So would love to get your updated take on.
Yeah. Yeah. The big thing is Yeah. What you're likely to see happen and Adal Cooper is already going down this road is so what they have done with the bombing um, so keep in mind uh, we don't have the full target sets, but I am paying as close attention as we can to what has been hit uh, is they have been hitting um, uh, a tiny bit of infrastructure, but mostly military targets related to the tactical issues um, that would be involved with suppressing any defense defenses if we were to do something on shore near the coast um, of Iran, just above the Gulf of Oman. What they have not been doing um, and this may well change, is focusing on uh, suppressing Iran's ballistic missile capability, like they were doing in March and in April. Uh, now, that you might say, well, isn't that the same thing? Well, some overlap with say command and control targets for sure. But what you're you're um, did not see over the last in this 13 days, at least I did not see, and maybe I can be stand corrected, are real efforts to go at the um, we know uh, roughly where the underground um, facilities are for the ballistic missiles and some of the drones. So, we we at least think we know where that that stuff is. Um, what we're what we didn't see were the efforts to shut down the air shafts, the doors, and so forth and so on. Um, and um, uh, this is um, not going to be um, fully successful, you know, just as it was not fully successful in um, uh, March or April. But the nature of that campaign, Mario, is a degradation, a suppression. So, so what you're uh, what you would what you're likely going to be seeing in Sencom right now, this week, and this second, is going back to Intel, getting back uh, sort of go to uh, uh, the chaos and so forth. And what they're likely going to be doing is they're going to be really working this problem hard. Uh, they they may also be sucking in every interceptor, every Patriot and THAAD interceptor from Asia and you know, maybe even pull some out of Ukraine. I don't know. But we're going to probably suck in every interceptor we can get. But what I would what I think is you're you're uh, probably going to see um, this renewed effort at the suppression because that's just the natural inclination of the military staffs. This this is not that they would want to go back to war, Mario. I'm not telling you that. I'm not even telling you that they will tell President Trump this will be fully successful and you'll be able to stop the attacks on desalinization and so forth. Um, but what I am telling you is that this is the natural thing that would happen at the staff level, and then this is um, uh, why when I explain this is not a showstopper. It's a it's a deterrent. It's it's an issue, but I think the other issues here, if President Trump um, really was worried about the cost to the world economy, the cost to people, the cost to you sitting in Dubai, he would not have gone down this road uh, or he would have stopped the war on March 1st. So, so the fact of the matter is, um, there's bigger reasons why he's going down this road and the costs in the in what he would think of as the short term, I don't think are going to be the thing that really holds him up. But anyway, I'm glad to.
So, you see what I mean by the unfolding of what you would do is if you have a problem where the other side has missiles that are attacking, same with aircraft. If they were launching aircraft, it's called offensive air control. So there's a whole mission in the Air Force. It's called offensive air control. Um, which um, would mean that whether it's u missiles coming at you or um, enemy aircraft coming at you, you get them um, at their base. You don't let them get up in the air because then you have defensive air control. You see what I mean? So you So that is a mission. It's been a mission forever. Uh, here and this would just be part of the drawer. You pull this out and but you have to work the problem. You're going to have to go back to all your satellite. You're going to have to go back and this is not a thing you just flip a switch ask AI go and do this. You're you're probably going to need um, you know, several days if not a week to really really prepare if you're going to actually try to truly degrade uh, even say a third of the launches. So you and you wouldn't destroy the missiles to be clear. You'd be d you'd be you'd be degrading the launch capacity in periods of time, just as what happened in uh, March and um, and March and April. And you notice the launch capacity by Iran uh, went down. Um, and um, that corresponded with us blasting, you know, the the doors, the tunnels, the air shafts of uh, those those bases. Uh, and then we undoubtedly discovered more uh, more bases and then more aim points. Um, and that is just the nature of of how this was always going to unfold. So the issue here is um, just for the audience, there's limited stockpiles of interceptors in the US and long-range strike missiles. Now, for the long long-range precision missiles, those could be replaced as you you've explained before with short-range missiles, dumb bombs. They might cause more collateral damage. They might be harder to drop, but there are alternatives and there's enough munitions of those. Now, the interceptors, what is used, the THAADs, the Patriots that are used to intercept the drones and missiles being fired by Iran on American bases, American troops, or um, the Gulf as a whole, or Gulf energy infrastructure.
Well, and specifically the desalinization plants uh, and also the oil infrastructure. So to be really precise uh, here um, those are the high value targets that uh, and also of course the uh, the barracks here for the for the troops, things like that. But these would be a certain subset of high value targets. Uh, but I just want to point out those targets are were going to all almost always be vulnerable to a considerable extent because they're they're what's called the ultimate soft targets. These are not deeply buried. None of those high value targets we're talking about Mario uh, on the side of whether it's oil infrastructure, the pumping systems, whether it's the desalinization plants, um, even the troop barracks uh, here are not deeply buried. They're not in a situation where they are the ultimate soft targets. So, uh, those are going to be vulnerable and they're not just going to be vulnerable to ballistic missile. So they've got best we can tell Iran has got about a thousand of these big heavy ballistic missiles that that have like, you know, a ton of uh, uh, you know, sort of explosives on the tip uh, here, but they also have skimming cruise missiles. They have a whole lot of ways to attack those skimming cruise missiles. These interceptors we're talking about can't touch those at all. Those are coming at the wrong altitude. So, so it's it is going to be the case that if this escalates vertically uh, here, even with the suppression campaign I'm talking about uh, here, this is going to be quite nasty and um, it's the technical term, quite nasty. Uh, so we can unpack all that, but the the interceptors here that you're talking about and have zeroed in on the THAADs, the Patriots, these are hitting certain altitudes. They're they're they're they're optimized for certain types of incoming uh, missiles. And Iran just has a larger panoply, a broader array, and that will be true even with the suppression campaign I'm describing. So, uh, and this was true from on March 1st. This is not, you know, this is not changing in any way whatsoever. President Trump um, unless Kaine is is you know, dropping the ball, and I have no reason to think he is, he would be explaining that to President Trump. So those interceptors we're talking about are only against one of the threats to say Kuwait's eight desalinization plants, and Kaine would know that. The Admiral would know that. These are these are like fully knowable uh, uh, threats. Do you see what I mean? So that's why the interceptor, it's all, you know, it's boutique. It's, you know, seems like, oh, this is the card. It's the show and and and it is playing a role. I'm not denying it's not playing any role. I'm saying that I think that still we're overrating this in the broad scheme of things. And the big issue is, does President Trump really care about the cost to these people? Does he really care? And that and that is unless I see some evidence that he's actually going to, you know, be deterred by this over some period of time, like, you know, not just a few days, but between now and, you know, say end of September, you know, over a period of time, Mario, we're not in a, everybody wants to predict what's going to happen tomorrow. Well, what happens tomorrow is always a product of infinite numbers of variables. My world is about what's p what's going to happen over a period of a month, a period over several months, stages. You see what I mean? That's just much more reliable on the. So these interceptors are used to pro to defend the sensitive areas, US military targets, as well as infrastructure in the Gulf. Now, these are the these interceptors are the ones that are limited in stockpiles and about, I think there was, for example, the THAADs, there was 360 pre-war infantry, about 300, up to 300 were used, almost all of them were used. Patriots, there was 2,300 before the war, about half of them have been used. SM3s, SM6s, very similar numbers, about half, and and SM3s, pretty much all used.
Um, no, half, about half. So these are the the the ones that really are are a concern for military officials. Now, the the other concerning part, and that's where my question comes, professor, is not only are they low in these stockpiles, but the the ability to produce them takes a long time, as you know. It takes years, it takes up to four years to replenish those stockpiles. And when you look at a war like this, generally to see it's if it becomes a war of attrition or who who outlasts who, it's the the metric we could use to compare the two to see who has the upper hand would be the ability to produce them. And and Iran could produce thousands of missiles and drones per year, whereas the US can produce, you know, dozens, 96 THAADs, 600 PAC-3s. So if Iran can outproduce the Americans, the strategy for the Americans, as you've explained, is the offensive strategy to destroy the missile launchers so they can't launch these thousands of missiles. That was a strategy from the beginning. And destroy the drone factories so they can't keep producing them. But you can't, it's really difficult to to destroy the underground facilities. They've been targeted. They've been rebuilt constantly. We've seen the reports. And to destroy drone manufacturing manu drone factories, it's almost impossible because drones are not hard to manufacture, especially when the parts get delivered from China by rail. So if Iran can get the material, can produce them, the US tried to destroy those abilities to launch the drones and missiles and has failed so far, despite dropping so much ordnance over that 40 days. Um, there, what I struggle to see, and why I'm optimistic, slightly optimistic, is I just don't see a military path. And Cooper allegedly told Trump.
I am on board with this 100%. So so as I've been explaining, not so we spent so much time on our discussion Mario on the the interceptors, we haven't really talked about the big picture that I've been laying out over the last few weeks. So over the last few weeks on my Substack here, I've I've developed these maps here to really help understand why um, the United States cannot open Hormuz between now and the midterm. So the big picture here. So let's put the interceptor issue just aside for a moment because we're drilling in like a soda straw to a piece of this, but I think we're missing the forest by looking at a certain tree. And you're developing now the forest, and that's really what we should be uh, I think the big picture here uh, the big picture is that between now and the midterms, and I think uh, not just the midterms, probably through January um, it is virtually impossible, it's going to be virtually impossible for the United States uh, to open Hormuz. And now to open Hormuz and the Red Sea. So this is now just in the last few days doubled the problem, made this much much much worse. Uh, here uh, but let's focus just on the opening of the Hormuz problem. So the key thing here, as you're explaining, there's all these drones, but the key thing is trying the issue of the drone hunts. So, we've had Scud hunt hunts before, but the issue of the drone hunts is an issue that I can summarize in one word. Scale. Scale. That's the big thing that's hard to get across in the media. Now, we used to say the media had a hard time because the public's didn't know the geography. Well, actually now, after five months of war, they know where Iran is roughly. They even know where Hormuz is. The key thing that I've been developing here are terrain maps where I have then superimposed Iran's drone launch zone on the terrain map of Iran. This is on my X account. This is on my uh, my Substacks. And these uh, are maps that I made. uh, and the maps are really very important because when I say scale, first thing to know is given the range of a Shahed 136 drone here, as you just said, large large numbers, but the key thing is the range um, the uh, the zone that from which they could um, launch from and confidently hit uh, ships in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman is about a a 500 mile by 500 mile box, and that is bigger than California. That's one and a half times the size of California, just to be clear. And that that box is those uh, thousands of drones could be anywhere in that box, Mario. And they only need a dozens to survive. So this is not like they need all thousands to survive. Uh, they only need uh, dozens to survive because they attack in swarms. And yes, that's what the these maps I think are so important. Thank you for putting it up, Mario. And and I'm doing my best here with the media to try to communicate the issue of scale here. And I'm a professor. I teach all the time. I use all kinds of, you know, uh, visuals and maps and so forth, but scale is hard. Now, here's what's even harder about that scale. Notice when I we show this on the media, this is a 2x2. This is a two-dimensional uh, depiction of this. The reality is three-dimensional. And that's what I'm having a hard time struggling with, Mario, to get across to viewers because that area, that 500 mile by 500 mile um, drone launch zone in Iran is heavily in mountains. What are mountains? A good way to imagine mountains is they're kind of like skyscrapers. They've got all these crevices and they're not just underground. Underground is a big part of it for sure, Mario. But when you're dealing with these mountainous areas, Mario, the launch areas, they could be in so many nooks and crannies here. Uh, and what is the size of a Shahed 136 drone? Uh, well, you can compare it to an F-150 truck, okay, which is the most common truck in America and also uh, the most common truck size in Iran where there are millions of them. But they also are about the same size as a king-size mattress and they're not very those Shaheds are not very heavy. Okay. So that means that these this drone hunt here, what we are are embarking upon or are imagining, and I'm about to get on with some generals later to debate this because they think you can pull this off. Okay. So I'm about to go toe-to-toe with some big generals here and I don't want to say.
Pull off the destroying the drone launching capacity of the Iran in that region.
That's right. That's right. And they think if we just have months and we do this over months, we're going to be able to pull this off. And this is so even though I'm trying to explain to you that this has got more reality to it, you and I are debating as if I'm advocating this where it's the other way around. I'm trying to tell you, Mario, this is much more serious of a of an issue than and you've got a bunch of people all dismissing it. Can't be done, can't be not. Well, I'm sorry, Mario, but you're not stopping the war that way. I'm in the business of actually changing the minds of Air Force Chiefs of Staff, the West Wing of the White House. We got to get inside of this and take down the arguments in a much more powerful way than just getting a bunch of experts to agree can't be done. That is not how you stop wars. That is just I've been doing this for 35 years and it had some success. So, so the way you've got to and this is the this is closer to the reality of you've got to get inside of the problem, take down the assumptions as the advocates are making the case. Do you see what I mean? So, if you want to bring on me versus one of the advocates, man, now.
I know I Admiral Mark Montgomery, great guy. Um, and he talks about he's a very, you know, straight shooter and he talks about how it's feasible to achieve this. You should meet him. He's a great guy. But he was the I struggled to find generals that would um had the former the former Sentcom commander on the show a couple of months ago um saying how it's possible. Um, but I think Mark Montgomery, who's a regular on the and he's he was an admiral. He was a regular on the show, military expert, knows his stuff, would make for a great conversation. I think me Mario, I'm glad to do it, but I'm not surprised you're having a hard time. It's not because those advocates are not there. Just turn on Fox News almost. They could probably turn it on right now, okay? And just look at the Sunday shows uh, that we've seen, say Margaret Brennan show when she was interviewing. So the the fact of the matter is um, just because you can't get them on doesn't mean that it's um, it's not anyway. So let me get back to this problem here, the actual operational problems here. Okay. So, the operational problems as I'm trying to lay this out are this area where you have the you have to the drone launch zone for Iran is is the scale is bigger than California and it's three-dimensional. So, one way I've tried to think about depicting this because keep in mind I said mountains are kind of like skyscrapers. Do you know how many Manhattans you can fit in that area there, Mario? 11,000 Manhattans.
So a man. So now the reason I'm picking Manhattan is number one, I was in Manhattan trying to explain this to some people and number two, many people have been to Manhattan, so they have some idea of what I'm talking about about all the skyscrapers. So if you had to find the final 200 Shahed drones in just one Manhattan, and it's again about the size of a king-size mattress, instead of, you know, probably weighs about 200 lb, so or maybe a little bit more than that, but it's not a it's not a 5,000 pound thing. Okay, you you good luck finding the final 200 in just one Manhattan because of all the different rooms. It could be it could be in the basement underground. It could be on the 12th floor. It could be in your next to the studio you're doing. I I was trying to explain this to somebody on a podcast and I was trying to explain that these these drones could literally be in the anteroom where we were waiting with the coffee to come on because they're just not that big. So you can um uh you can tuck them away. And the drone area that we're talking about, Mario, is literally the size of 11,000 Manhattans. So, this is what I'm trying to get across because between now and the midterms, the idea you're going to physically militarily shut this down, I think is virtually impossible here. And I think that Iran knows that. I think that this is like the secret. You know, they know you can't shut this down, which is why they're not budging and their demands are actually escalating because the world is on uh the economy. The that we're like the economy is like the Titanic. We're on the Titanic and we're about to hit the iceberg. And by the way, the fact we now have two uh um fronts where we have the Red Sea front. Notice that was just the Hormuz front. Now we're adding the Red Sea front to this. The size of the iceberg we're about to hit just doubled.
Yeah. It just doubled. So we are we are and what we've got to do, Mario, at least what I believe because again, I'm a professor. I'm used to trying to communicate complex ideas to really smart people. So, and I and I know that it's uh, it's not good enough to have formulas. You've got to really try to make it intuitive so they understand the concepts uh, here. And I think one of the big problems we're having is uh, the issue of scale of what President Trump is taking on here. And and then people keep saying, "Oh, sure, Iran's going to just they're going to come to the I'm sorry to pick on, you know, you because a lot of but you you say this a lot that Iran doesn't want the war. They understand the cost." Uh, no, they they also understand that the best way to deter America from doing this foolishness again is is to sink the American uh, presidency by sinking the American economy, which doesn't mean they want the economy in America to be dead for 5, 10, 30 years, send us back to the stone ages, but they do. There's there's an actual incentive here and and you see this and some of the people you've had on your show, I mean literally from arrive are explaining they want to hit the desalinization.
Yeah. You heard my interview with Professor I advocating for the strikes and I was because I always drink water. He's like Mario, I know you like drinking water. I think Iran should strike the desalination plants in the UAE and the rest of the Gulf. I'm like, "Oh, thank you, Professor Isadi."
And and what he said, "If I remember his words right, and then the American troops can go back to America to get a drink of water."
Exactly. You see what I'm saying? And notice he wasn't saying in retaliation.
Yeah. He No, he he he recommends he advocates and there's a a big piece of Iran that advocates for preemptive strikes by the Iranians to create enough.
Call it preemptive. This is revenge of the First Order. Let's just be clear. I've been studying bombing for 35 years. I've gotten inside of all of the stuff. I peeled the PR all the way down to the documents in the British bombing and the firebombing of of the German city, all that. And I'm just telling you what this is is at bottom. That's a classic example of a Winston Churchill like revenge. Okay? He wanted his his big disappointment in World War II is he set off the British Bomber Command to firebomb the top 58 towns and cities in Germany. And they did firebomb them and they firebombed 50% of the urban area in each of the 58 towns, each of them. And his big disappointment, I mean, Winston Churchill was they only killed 300,000 German civilians. That's crazy. They were going for a million, 900,000. You see what I mean? And this is what you're seeing here unfold. And that's why this idea that that this is uh, if only we just calm down Trump, we're okay. I mean, I'm just telling you, we have touched off just just an amazing amount of anger.
Unless we kick the hell out of the hornet's nest. But I have a question. I asked one of my guests yesterday. Do you think there's a possibility that Iran um, let's say this war ends, but the anger won't end, and we see a more hostile Iran in the region that might seek their revenge in different ways on different Gulf countries like Kuwait, Bahrain, and other countries? Is that a possibility that the next 5 years Iran could become more hostile?
Yes, absolutely. This is what happened to America after 9/11. So you recall 9/11, we had this conversation on your show, but we'll do it briefly. On 9/11 um, 3,000 people died that day. Of course, the Twin Towers and then also in the Pentagon. Um, but then what happened is the anger built from there. It didn't that wasn't the end of the anger. That was the beginning of the anger. And then over the next several months, uh, America in concert with some local ground power allies toppled the Taliban. That was just too easy. And I know I was in I was in Chicago and I'm listening to people at my church and I'm going and there and this is the these are the churchgoers. Okay. Uh, explaining, no, this is the Chicago way. They send one of ours to the hospital, we send two of theirs to the morg. We got to get another one. And that was why the support was there for Iraq. And Iraq then took 18 months. But all that anger, and I have this in opinion poll data. I can track, we can track the building anger. It did not dissipate over time, Mario. It grew over time. And uh, Afghanistan was just too easy. Americans were bloodthirsty, is is is unbelievable. And they wanted to kill Muslims, just to be blunt. Okay? And they want to kill them in large numbers. And that's why they weren't deterred by, oh, you're going to go into Iraq and cause a civil war and 100,000. These are the kinds of things I was saying that we these are bad ideas. The hornet's nest is about to get a lot worse. We're going to touch off all this. No, they were they were hungry for revenge and um, this was emotion. Um, I'm trying to come at it intellectually. This is very emotional here, and that's what you're seeing in Iran. So this is going to be th this is why you the Americans are having a very hard time even like imagining this, and then if they do start to empathize at all, they start to think they're becoming traitors, and they don't want to they want to stop that. So this whole thing of trying to get publics and and even leaders, because see, leaders are human beings. They're we we talk about as if they're robots and they're just chess masters. No, they're human beings, and I've seen a lot of them. They're they're human beings. They vary as human beings do. Um, but that means they've got a big hunk of emotion floating around inside of those skulls as well. So you've got a lot of this these are the trap of the escalation trap. It's not just a chess game. It's it's it's emotion, which I summarize as politics. So it's military action interacting with politics, and a big part of politics is raw emotion, and uh, this is affecting Iran, not just the United States, and you've had it right on your show, and it's it's really u important. I mean, I think if most that's one of the shows everybody, you should replay that or clips of it so people can get a sense of what is being triggered by America's military action.
How could what's a worst-case scenario for Iran getting out of this war? And we're assuming this war is going to end, which you've made the argument on why it's very possible it wouldn't end. But I'm genuinely curious, how bad could the region get once the US, if and when I when I look at this war, I am looking at between now and January, Mario. So when I say I don't think it's going to end, I don't mean it's not it's going to go on for the entirety of 2027, the entirety of 2028. But notice when I started to say that probably on your show a couple months ago, people were, "Oh, you can't possibly be. We're about to end this whole thing." And so I think now people are starting to recognize that that January is not that unrealistic. It's actually becoming more and more plausible, and I've been saying that for months and months. So, so this is really and why January, it's because that's when you're really going to know if you're on on Iran's side and then the leadership side, how much damage you've done to President Trump's presidency for real between now and January. They can try to cause damage to President Trump's presidency. Uh, of course, they can try to hurt him personally and of course and his family. This year.
Yeah, you but I mean, just but you'll know by January, and probably by like January 8th, because that's when the next Congress is supposed to be seated. Now, that's a lot. There's a lot of water between now and then. So, uh, there's the midterms, there's if the Democrats win, then even if they win, can they be seated? Does Trump have some tricks and all that all that stuff? So, but from um, the perspective here of Iran, I think this is the planning horizon. It's okay, you're going to do certain things to wreck a lot of stuff uh, here. The economy, Trump's presidency, um, try to reestablish deterrence is kind of the nice high-falutin way to put it. Okay. Um, but this then will come a point, probably again, right around the first, second week in January, where they're going to be thinking, okay, now we've done this round, what should we think about what would make sense for the next several years? That's an opportunity to try to reestablish something. That's what I've been explaining. I'm saying people ask me, what would you tell President Trump? I'd be saying already, try to build a strategy for the next three years. Don't try to keep winning things between now and the midterms. This is a this is a doom loop. You're not likely to come out of this uh, here. So, I'm trying to uh, get us in a better time horizon. Um, but now, how bad could it get? Well, tonight I'm about to give a talk on my uh, escalation trap live uh, briefing, my nightmare scenario here. Um, and unfortunately, it could get pretty bad here between now and January. Um, and it's not going to be linear. So, so we're in what I and what I call the spiral phase of the escalation trap, and it's a spiral where escalation is occurring possibly vertically and horizontally. Now, when we were on uh, the last time we were talking about the possibility of vertical escalation, and notice that people were kind of not focused and dialed in on the possibility of the horizontal escalation. Well, I've been trying to talk about both, but it's hard because, you know, everybody wants to talk about the immediate thing that just right in front of them and happened today. But these are both dimensions of the spiraling escalation trap, and they reinforce each other. So, and what happened in the last week is Trump pulled back uh, maybe a pause, maybe temporarily on um, the vertical escalation. Uh, Iran, you're hearing there are people who don't want to pull back. They're ready to go. Okay. But then also what happened is while the world was debating uh, Trump's vertical escalation um, we got horizontal escalation with the Red Sea uh, not 100% shutting down, best my data is able to see it's been shut down about uh, 40% maybe 50%. So it's a little hard to know. You're probably tracking it super fine-grain detail, but this will evolve over time anyway. But my bottom line is this is what you are what you are seeing, and and the and also then what this means for the world economy is this is exactly Mario what I've been warning about about Iran's period of maximum leverage. So again, if I know you have dozens and dozens of people you talk to, but if you can go back to our conversation in end of May, early June, I was warning that as the oil inventories are going to draw down, Iran will get its period of maximum leverage because the buffers are going to be uh, drawing down. That's when the Red Sea could open up. It's the and the timing of this was very predictable uh, here. Now, of course, you had to get the Houthis on board. You got to work out the details. So you can't say it to the day. But this is the that what I mean by the horizontal stage. It's it's um, in line with Iran's incentives. Iran has the incentive to not just drive a hard bargain, but to develop its leverage. So its leverage grows over time because it doesn't just want America to go back to anou. It wants to get all 50,000 troops out. It wants all those bases out. It it's it's making deals like literally, you know, on a daily basis with country A, country B, you know, don't you see you're better off with Pakistan. I think this is the latest with Kuwait. Get rid of those American troops. Go to Pakistan if you want some troops. The what this is all about is um, exploiting this period of maximum leverage. At maximum leverage is oil and gas and refining. It's not just the oil uh, here. Um, but it's coming, and this is this is going to um, uh, make uh, a political settlement between now and January almost impossible. Trump may want a political settlement. Go back to theou, and what are you seeing out of the Iran um, uh, Supreme Leader just in the last couple of days? You want us to talk diplomacy here? You get those Israelis out first. You see, they're they're they're not just driving a hard bargain here. They're not bargaining at all. They're issuing demands, and they're just going to keep issuing demands. So, you get the Israelis out, next step is going to be the bases in Qatar, Kuwait, all the everything. So, this is just going to go on and on between now and probably January. Um, as a as a final question, are you still worried about the ground troops option that's still on the table in your view on these?
For sure. Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Because again, as a as a.
As we go forward here, the uh, in fact, the the way I think, so how do I put this? So a year a year ago, so when when I was given when I was doing the 20 the modeling of the bombing of Iran for 20 years, I always explained that stage one would be America would bomb, and then a year or two later, that would be the bombing of Ford would be the catalyst to do regime change bombing. That would be the most that would be the sequence, and literally that's what happened. Of course, I had no idea about intel, and but this would there's all reasons for that. It wasn't just a guess, and that's exactly what happened here. People are worrying about the infrastructure destruction. Okay. I think the most likely way you're going to see that uh, oil and water infrastructure destroyed is as uh, the ground operations unfold. And I think that that is the sequence people are missing. And I'm going to explain tonight in more detail that people are thinking, "Oh, uh, President Trump, he's just going to want one convulsive hit. One more hit." Well, okay, but that's not really likely, and it's some of the reasons we're saying here because I agree with you on the limits of the interceptors and dot dot dot, but that doesn't mean you're stopping this whole thing. And I think that what you're you're uh, we're still missing here. Uh, and some are advocating it. Uh, by the way, is that um, the this can still be stage three, the ground power dilemma. It starts with a limited ground se a seizure of a limited piece of ground. Why a symbolic victory, and that becomes the catalyst over a period of weeks for that massive infrastructure escalation. These are not these are not tradeoffs. I think this is the more natural sequence of what to expect, and always has been.
Cool. Well, professor, pleasure as always.
Sorry if you started out positive. I'm used to it now. I'm used to it now. No longer surprises me. Pleasure to speak to you again for professor. Thank you.
Okay. And keep up the great work, Mario. Really great, man. University of You got University of Chicago blood in you.
Appreciate it. Thank you, professor. Bye-bye.
Uh, all right, guys. So, I'll be live with Philip Pilington in 15 minutes to talk about what's happening to the energy markets. There was a pretty big drop in prices of um, of oil futures after, you know, when markets opened after Trump delayed or paused the strikes for today. I think day four or day five is today. So we'll be talking to Philillip in 15 minutes. In the meantime, I'll give you a very brief news recap. So the Ivans are saying there are no negotiations, but they always say this whenever there are negotiations. They always deny it just not to give breathing room for Trump and not to calm the markets. Um, you've got the the uh, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson um, criticizing that's pretty that's just um, that's an odd one, probably should discuss later on. So he's criticizing the US for um, walking back their deal with Saudi, the nuclear program deal for civilian use after pushback from Israel. So this is Iran, who's meant to be a rival to Saudi, criticizing the US for not doing a deal with Saudi. Just giving you an idea, a a another peak into how the region is changing. I think this is something that we'll continue to see unravel, the Gulf coming together um, as the region adapts to the US moving out. So we're going to see more indicators of this. We've got Netanyahu who's heading to meet Trump right now. He's on his way to Washington. Trump made a statement about it just uh, a few minutes ago, about about 30 minutes ago, about meeting him. So we'll see a meeting today, I think, between Trump and Netanyahu. Um, we'll see what comes out of this. I don't expect much. We've got um, more reports of US officials concerned about the depleted munitions and most importantly, what happened in uh, Saudi. So the Houthis have attacked or they claim to have attacked another fuel depot and oil processing infrastructure um, in Saudi that is owned by Saudi Saudi Aramco in Upcake. So it's pretty significant damage. If you can show this on on uh, on the screen, Phil, if you can show this one on on the screen, but that's from an attack today that was that, according to the Saudis, came out of Iraq. So you've got an Iraqi militia attacking energy infrastructure in Saudi. So what Professor Pap was talking about how this is escalating horizontally. This is another indicator of that, and this is on top of the attack that came in. So that's uh, yeah, this is today, and yeah, keep this one, and this is on top of the attack that came in um, that was, I think it was two days ago by the Houthis directly on Saudi that caused significant damage, and I think that refinery is still burning up 48 hours later today. So Saudi getting hit hard by the Houthis, and there's also internal clashes between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed um, military forces. As you know, Yemen is kind of split into two, been through a civil war for over a decade. You've got the Houthis supported by Iran. You've got the uh, uh, the Yemeni forces, I forgot their name, that are supported by Saudi. They've clashed, and according to reports, it's the Houthis that have withdrawn from a small small um, uh, small territories on that border between the two forces. So this is happening in Houthi in in Yemen, the horizontal escalation. Um, and on the Lebanese front, you've got um, Syria Al-Shar keeps you can remove the image. Ashar keeps denying reports that he he's considering joining um, he can say joining Israel, but he's considering getting going into Lebanon and fighting Hezbollah, something that Trump has requested. Um, so thankfully Alshara keeps refuting those claims. But we got another story coming out of Saudi Alakbar, I think it's Saudi um, talking about the scenario of Alshara getting military support from the US um, and Emirati and Saudi funding. Holy. So to get logistical support and Saudi and Emirati funding to go in Lebanon to fight Hezbollah. Lebanon will be screwed if that happens. You have civil war in the region, Syria would get screwed. Now, I hope that doesn't happen because you've got two countries, both invaded by Israel, fighting each other. It's probably one of the worst things those two countries could do. So, fingers crossed that doesn't happen. So, these are the news updates for now. And there's one piece of news that came in a few minutes ago while I was speaking to Professor Pap. Where is it? Here. Trump told Axios that everyone involved in talks with Iran have urged him not to resume military strikes, adding that he believes Iran wants to reach a deal. All of the people that that deal with Iran asked me, don't fire. So Trump said asked, and when Trump was asked how long he's willing to give diplomacy a chance, he replied, "Not much time. Either it goes fast or not at all." So this is just reaffirming what we know already from the reports over the weekend that after Cooper, Dan Kaine, JD Vance, but and I'm sure others as well talked to him, he delayed the strikes he had planned against Tan. So that's a quick news recap. I'll see you guys in a few minutes in 10 minutes with Philip Pilington. Let me know what you think of this conversation and other conversations, as always, in the comments. I go through them on a daily basis. See you guys shortly.