The Spice Must Flow!

(upbeat music) Hello listeners, welcome to another episode of Geopolitical Cousins. It is Wednesday, April 1st. It is 3.30 pm central time, 4.30 pm, Eastern time, President Trump will be speaking in what I can do math four and a half, five hours roughly. We are gonna try to push this out before the speech. Even so, when you listen to this President Trump speech will have probably already happened. I tried to structure the conversation in such a way that you know what happens, whether he doubles down on victory or whether he doubles down on attacking Iran more or whether there's something in between. But just understand that a lot can change based on what happens with President Trump's speech tonight. But Cousin, I go at it, the developments of the last week. You can email me at [email protected]. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, anything like that. I think that's all the notes from me, cheers. We'll see you out there. (upbeat music) Watch part, yeah, this is the pre-game to the watch party. So we are recording Wednesday, April 1st, 2.13 PM, Central Time. President Trump will be giving his speech later this evening. I immediately, I couldn't decide which gift I wanted to tweet out. So I did three at the same time yesterday, thinking that tacos were imminent. But I'm not so sure, tacos are imminent, Cousin, 'cause the Iranians blew up a fully-ladened tanker in the Dubai port. You've got the Trump administration. I mean, one second, they're saying negotiation, the second they're ready to do more. A whole lot that shows de-escalation. So maybe he's gonna announce that he's taking car-guiland. Well, I don't know if this will go up before the speech actually happens. So we should try and at least frame our commentary around both scenarios there. But where do you wanna start, Cousin? It's a, I mean, a lot has happened in the last week and nothing has happened in the last week. - So much has happened, you know, like we could do this every day pretty much and just have a call from Cousin commentary. What I would say, I would start off by saying, here's what's gonna happen tonight. What's going to happen tonight is just great fucking television. (laughing) Like that's what's gonna happen. It's gonna be Trump is his best. He is the content creator in chief. He does it brilliantly. You can hate him, you can love him. The fact of the matter is, man knows TV. Okay, he is more famous for the apprentice than for pretty much anything else he's done. And he is going to put on a show. And you know what, we're all gonna watch it. I'm talking to clients who are gonna have watch parties. People are going to stay up in Europe to watch it. I mean, this is, this is, this is just gonna be great. So I don't think that he can just taco. That'll be disappointing episode. It's a disappointing apprentice season ending. I think what he's gonna do is I think he's going to announce an exit from NATO. I think that tonight he's going to do the awesome Zag on a ZIG, right? So we're all sitting here, Iran, Hormuz, oil. And he's gonna be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's, that's this episode. First of all, I declare victory and I'm gonna take my toys and leave. So, you know, if you wanna call that taco, go ahead, shake up TDS and chief. No, what he's gonna do is he's gonna declare victory. - Taco D'Arrangement Syndrome. I definitely have Taco D'Arrangement Syndrome. - I think we all do. - Taco's every time. - Brother, but this point, we all have Taco and digestion syndrome, you know? We haven't digested it in digestion. But like, yeah, I mean, I think that's what he's gonna do. And you know, I just recorded a real vision hit with our friend, Mikkel Rosenwald. And so, it was his really, like, he put that in my head. So, I hate stealing ideas from other, you know, geopolitical analysts as you do as well. We rarely even read anybody else other than our own thoughts. That's why these are, by the way, if anyone listening to this podcast is like, wow, these guys are so natural. Yeah, because we didn't rehearse this. We don't read each other's views. We don't read each other's client, like production, which is hilarious. I bet people think we edit each other's works. No, then this wouldn't be natural. We get surprised, we get angry, we get like, flabbergasted by each other's stakes. And so, I do like to give props. And Mikkel, he was like, look, man, I think he's gonna do something on NATO. I think he's right. I think that that's a perfect way to distract from the morass from the execution failure in Iran. I think it's a perfect way to end the season and set up the next season. Which is, and by the way, I love that this is a distraction. So, Iran was a distraction to Epstein, and so now NATO will be a distraction to Iran. And then what's the cliffhanger? What is he gonna leave us on? I don't know. And obviously, legally, the United States of America cannot leave NATO without congressional vote. But it's okay, they can fudge it. They can do all sorts of, he can say his pausing. He can move troops around. He can say, okay, well, I'm gonna take some troops out and it's gonna be a crisis. But this crisis is going to be good for everybody, actually. I'm not saying that pulling troops out of NATO or abandoning NATO is objectively a good thing. I'm just saying that because it won't be legal, it's kind of a fake crisis. And it's just going to cause European equities to rip higher because everyone will be like, oh, okay, fine. Now they gotta really become geopolitical adults. They can't be geopolitical adolescents anymore. So I don't know. I think, you know, it's a cool way to kind of say, like, look, I won here. Well, Mr. President, what about a regime? Ah, and now I'm gonna leave NATO because our allies remain to us and didn't come to our hour of needs that we kind of created ourselves by like falling into a mistake. Well, but, you know, move on. - No, it's not a mistake. There's been regime change. The Navy is why the Air Force is right out. Everything is fine. Everything is fine. - Everything is fine. - Sorry. - No, this is like totally subjective and very, very anecdotal. But I will say, you're right that Trump's superpower and geniuses that he can find the thing that is gonna make everyone collectively lose their minds to the extent that they forget the thing that they were losing their minds about before. And like, just in the last hour, my Twitter has blown up with people talking about this NATO thing. Like, it's no longer anybody's talking about, I have like 100 notifications of like NATO this. NATO, somebody just said the North American terrorist organization. Like, they're just like going crazy about NATO. And some way, like he's put his finger on there, at least some way. I think Russian China like, like they're just standing there like, okay, okay. - They're not standing there. That sound that you're hearing off in the distance, that's champagne bottles popping in Beijing and Moscow. - Which you know? - Like they don't have to lift a finger. It's just like, oh, the United States is literally like deconstructing this thing which has contained and supported American power for so. - They're holding a pillow through their face and screaming excitement. Like, so that nobody hears them, you know? Like, this is one of those situations where like, just don't do anything. - Just like, like don't put, like don't put out a five point piece plan with Pakistan, the ceasefire, 'cause they already did that. - I know. - That's one of the big decision points of the line. - It was just, look, all I'm saying is like, if you're Russian and China, just like be quiet, just let this happen. You know, like, let Donald Trump cook right now because, you know, like, this is, I mean, you know, like, yeah, we're gonna distract from Iran by abandoning NATO, which of course is ridiculous because what was NATO supposed to do here? Like, it would take six months of preparation and troop movements to have ground forces and naval forces in place to do what's happening in Iran. Oh, sorry, excuse me. To do what folks think is happening in the Persian Gulf to do that correctly, like none of that happened. And so, you know, it is what it is. - It is what it is. Before, let's not get to, I wanna talk about NATO in a second. I don't wanna get stuck down the rabbit hole. This is how I've been thinking about it lately, or at least in the last day or two. It's not a perfect binary, like nothing is binary, but I feel like there are two trajectories that this can go on. Behind door number A is some, it's not quite a taco. It's a taco salad. It involves the United States declaring victory and pulling back and say, okay, it's for the rest of the world to figure out. We got rid of the nuclear weapons mission accomplished. The straight of Hormuz is left in the control of Iran. Maybe Oman as well, if Iran is feeling generous, some kind of tolling mechanism is set up. Maybe payable in Iranian real, maybe you on, maybe stable points, who knows? But Iran gets to control who goes in and out of the straight of Hormuz going forward and an axe a cost for that. Maybe China is the guarantor of that system. And I think that's your best case scenario. Because in that scenario, the straight of Hormuz starts to normalize and things start to get easier. I still think we're looking at energy disruption, everything else, but the best case scenario is a bunch of thuggish theocratic ghouls in Tehran, successfully build a tolling booth around the straight of Hormuz. Behind door B is, I mean, I hope I'm not being too hysterical here, cousin, is economic catastrophe? I mean, if this goes on for another three weeks, like President Trump has been suggesting, like his aides have been leaking to the Wall Street Journal and everybody else about the speech that is coming out later, we're gonna be in the land of physical energy shortages, we're gonna be in the land of petrochem shortages, everything else, and it also gives us two or three weeks of more chances for escalation. Like I said, just an hour or two ago, there were these reports that Iran hit, a fully laden tanker in the Dubai port. What happens if the United States in these next two, three weeks because Trump feels like he needs to get the Iranians to give him some kind of better deal? Takes carg island. Or if the Israelis decide we don't like that this war is ending. We're going to start hitting crazy shit that you hadn't even imagined we were going to hit before. And then Iran starts hitting more energy infrastructure and we start escalating. So it seems to me the best case scenario, like I said, is the IOTOLA's control is straight up for MOOZ. And the worst case scenario is global economic catastrophe worse than the COVID-19 disruption because we're in an escalation ladder that neither the United States and Iran are going to get out of at least for the next two, three weeks. Do you see a door C? Do you see any nuance here? Because I'm increasingly seeing less nuance and being like those are the two options. And of course, Trump has to choose number A and he has to somehow, to your point, put lipstick on the pig and say, this is what I meant. This is what I wanted to do the whole time. I got rid of the nukes. The rest of the world can figure this shit out. NATO, you suck. Come at me. I mean, look, but he objectively did say that. It was President Trump himself who decided that his initial war aims were not good enough. Yeah. You know, like regime change. His war aims change all over the place, but yeah. Yeah, no, no, but like day one, this was about degrading missiles, drones, proxies, Navy, nuclear. Proxy was, I mean, that was Mark Rubio's statement like day one of the war. That was like, oh, yeah. I agree with you. It was little Marco statement the entire time. It was not Trump statement the whole time. Trump has been all over the place. He has been all over the place. But again, my point is that it was the appetite grew because it looked like it was awesome. And then the appetite is not going to be go back to the original. So anyways, it doesn't really matter. Like the point is, I think there is a third scenario, you know, like I think so. I think there's a scenario where the war lasts a decade. And oil flows. I've said that before on our podcast, I think people are really, really forgetting that for 80 years, Middle East has had constant warfare and yet oil has flowed. So you know, like this is why Frank Herbert in Dune created exact same scenario where there's constant warfare over Araquist, but the spice flows. Because Dune is literally just transposed from our world to the science fiction world. And so like this is not supernatural. It's not a product of astrology. It's not a product of magic. It is impossible to arrest and abrogate flow of energy out of the Middle East forever. Because then you will make too many enemies and you yourself. I mean, all of these are petrol states. So this is where I think there is an alternative where, you know, oil and other commodities increasingly are shipped out of her moves, even as Iran, Israel and maybe even the US in a much more limited capacity. I mean, occasional fire jet continue the war. So I don't know if we need an actual moment when there's de-escalation. I'm not sure that we need a moment when there's actual, oh, look, there's the truth. And you know, to everyone listening to this and thinking they're crazy, that I'm crazy, markets in the global economy moved away from Russia, Ukraine. The war is still going on. People are still dying. Markets in the economy moved away from COVID. People were still dying of COVID. I mean, I'm assuming people are still dying of COVID. The last two calamities we have had from a global markets perspective, from a global economic perspective, from a geopolitical pandemic perspective, they both ended being calamities before an official announcement. So in February of 2022, people seriously contemplated that Russia would use nuclear weapons. There was serious questioning of where would they stop? Would it be the NEPR? Would it be borders of Ukraine with Poland? Would it be somewhere else? Nobody's questioning those points anymore. Nobody's walking the streets of Warsaw, afraid for the life, they're obviously filled with anguish and sadness for the Ukrainian people. But my point is that all of these calamities over the last five years effectively ended without being over. And that would be a third scenario I would add, where we don't have a resolution or a re-exceleration of geopolitical conflict. But instead we just kind of have a war, particularly between Iran and Israel, because I don't see how the two of them ever make a deal. And yet somehow energy does continue to go through Hormuz. And by the way, we've seen a pickup in traffic. It's very minor. It's very minor. And everybody who thinks the world's going to end is going to point out that it's nowhere near the pre-war shipping levels. But that's how these things start. They start where the second derivative turns positive. And it has. That's true, but things have to continue along this path. And there's a very real story. I mean, I'm having these flashbacks, and this is maybe going to bias me a little bit, because I remember vividly it was one of the first moments I was relevant in the Stratford analyst room. It was towards the middle of the opening salvo of the Arab Spring. And everybody said, "Husni Mubarak, the former dictator of Egypt was about to resign." And I was this lowly ADP, basically an intern in the corner, being like, "There's no way Mubarak is about to resign." And he was supposed to give a speech. It was going to be like 4 p.m. central time. So we all huddled in this cubicle. And everybody was like, "All right, he's going to resign. We got to have the peace ready." And I was like, "I'm telling you guys, he's not going to resign. There is no way on God's green earth that Husni Mubarak is just going to be like, cool. Come out. I'm listening to the protesters." And he got up there in that really deep voice. It's even deeper than mine. I can't even mimic it. I wish I could. And he basically said, "I am the grandfather of the Egyptian nation. I am not going anywhere. Egypt is mine. Come at me, bro." And everybody was like, "Oh, Jacob, great. Go get us some coffee. We got to write a new piece." And I was like, "Great. I'll go get you the coffee." Go ahead. Point being, like, grandfather of the American nation, Donald Trump might be coming out tonight. I'm not dismissing the fact that he might come on air and be like, "The Iranians have not met my terms. I thought we had good negotiators, but we didn't have good negotiators. We are now going to be escalating by telling the Marines to seize Carg Island. And I will be destroying some energy infrastructure. And maybe then they'll finally come to the table. And then we're off to the races. And the little bit of increase that we've seen in traffic has gone. And we start going at the escalation window. And you get that kind of hysteria. Like, what is that? 30% chance, 40% chance? I don't know how to put a probability on it, but like, it's not at all clear to me that that that's not the direction that this is going. Oh, 100%. Especially because he keeps leaking that the war is going to go on for two to three more weeks. Like, what does that mean the war is going to go on for two or three more weeks? I think if you turn on Hormuz today, cool. Like maybe we can have a catastrophe two, three weeks. They're already talking about shortages in East Asia. Well, it's okay. You know, it'll freaking out. Shortages are fine if you know that they're going to be solved. You know, so that's the first thing I would say. I think a lot of people who are short right now, like in terms of equity markets and who are long oil, I think what they don't understand. I mean, not that I'm disagreeing with that position. I still retain a long oil position. But I think there's a real misunderstanding that like, yes, things can get very, very bad. But if they're being resolved, you know, the global economy, global consumers, global investors are going to look through the valley of supply loss. As long as we know that on the other side of the valley is, you know, the plateau, you're going to get out of the valley. So just keep that in mind, like if this situation lasts two to three weeks, but present Trump is very definitive that it's two to three weeks and there is no ground troops, it's okay if some factory in Shenzhen or Taipei gets shut down. It really is. Even if it's semiconductor, like the life will go on. The concern is what you said first, it's not so much that it's going to last two to three weeks is that in those two to three weeks, there's ground force incursion in one of the islands that the Iranians like consider like critical. And then they retaliate against energy like that is that's where even if you assign like a 35% probability to that outcome, which you seem to be assigning because you're like between 30% 40% probability, we go that route. The problem with that is that it's like blood red. You know, if you've got the green outcome on one side, like, oh, there's 60% probability of some sort of a de-escalation, what do you do? Do you go long? You know, do you say to yourself, well, everything is going to be fine? And my answer is no, even if your base case is okay, the problem is that the downside is not linearly worse. It's much worse. It's not linearly worse. The 35% that you're worried about Jacob, that's like, like we talked about last time, Mad Max, canisters of gasoline cannibalism. Like, that's where we are. And like, that's, you know, and that's the problem. That's the problem right now. It's very difficult to be optimistic. Even if I were to tell you no way, Jacob, no way, the probability is 20% or 15% that President Trump thinks that 8,000 special forces are good enough to do something. That's, it would be very dangerous. I mean, he's flirting with Jimmy Carter, Operation Eagle Claw 2.0, Disaster, I think, I would advise. him if I were talking to him in a cabin, I would be like, look, I'm not touching this with a, you know, with a pole shorter than 600,000 troops, like sorry. So if he disagrees with me and goes in and the probability of that is 20% again, the problem with that 20% even you, it sounds low to people listening to this. The outcome is so negative that the other 80% almost doesn't matter. What's your probability on that scenario? I'm exactly the same as you are. Actually, man, we like nailed it. You know, I think 65% probability of some form of de escalation that can actually look like continued warfare for the next 10 years. But oil flows. Yeah, I'm not necessarily worried that it looks like continuous warfare for the next 10 years. I think what it looks like is that Iran has a tolling mechanism on the straight up for moves. Why are you worried about that? Well, I'm worried about that because Iran has opened Pandora's box or closed Pandora's box, if you like. They have shown that they can stop shipping through the straight up for moves. So now that they've done it, now that they've ripped off the bandaid and now that they have the tolling of, not infrastructure, but you know, they're going to start tolling through the straight up for moves and that's going to be the new normal. Then they can shut down the straight whenever they want. If Israel doesn't withdraw from southern Lebanon, okay, we're shutting down the straight. If Israel does something against the hoodies, okay, we're shutting down the straight. Or can Iran be selective and say, you know what? We got into another spat with Pakistan on our border. No Pakistani ships will be allowed through the straight up for moves until Pakistan does what we want. And maybe a stray rocket or missile, something hits a Pakistani ship that tries to make a run through and then something blows up just like like what the market wants. I think you're exactly right. It doesn't matter whether it's the United States, Navy, policing, global choke points or whether it's the Ayatollahs with their toll, you know, asking for two, you know, however many million you want for you to go through. But the market needs is predictability, some level of certainty. And it just seems to me like there's a there's a version of the tolling scenario that is certainty. There's a version of continuous war, but ships can go through the straight up for moves. That's like the tanker war. There's also a version of this though where Iran is emboldened and you and says more like in Dune, hey, we control this now. So if you want to mess with us, if you want to get through here, you need to pay the toll. Otherwise, you're not getting through. And that's not certainty. Like that, that's a great deal of uncertainty. Yeah. It's uncertain certainty. Certain uncertainty. So why did they not so like I don't understand how tolling? I would argue that getting ships to go through her moves and making money off of them increases the likelihood that Iran does not ever again shut down the straight of her moves because now they're not only incentivizing potential build-up of alternatives. They're not only incentivizing potential, you know, efforts by the world to interdict their interdiction efforts, but it's also going to hurt their pocketbook. So in other words, what I would ask you is to kind of think in terms of first principles, why didn't Iran do this in the past? It's not like they didn't know they could do this. It's not like we like this is my problem with President Trump's thinking here. He started off this entire thing by saying no one in 47 years has ever attempted this. If you ever say that about anything, you should pause. I think only President Trump and his advisors are surprised that Iran did what they did. This has always been something that Iran could do and that's why on one hand I'm making fun of the administration. On the other hand, I'm undermining the logic behind your fear that Iran is somehow emboldened in using straight of her moves over Israel or Pakistan. There are costs to doing what they just did, but they did it because somebody threatened their regime. And so like as long as you don't threaten to regime in the future, they're not going to do this because they haven't done it. They haven't done it even when the regime was far more threatened in the Iran era core, which is like the NFL game compared to a bunch of electric kids playing touch football. That's how much more serious that was as a threat to the regime. So Iran has never done this in the past. I'm comfortable with them. Putting a tolling system, I think it will actually make them less likely to do the scenario you were described. I think probably, but that's where there's something beyond just the US as an actor here. For example, let's talk about Israel. I know that the United States was able to get Israel to stop the fighting last year. But Netanyahu, and by the way, I was trying to shift my analysis on Israel because I think my emotion has been clouding my analysis on Israel. I was trying to I sat with myself yesterday and I was like, what if Netanyahu is right? What if Israel is a great power? I can say in the long run that this is going to cause Israel to collapse because of internal and dissension because they're overrun. But even if you look back at the Jewish polities in this part of the world, they lasted for hundreds of years. This particular one has nuclear weapons. So what if there is a greater Israeli empire that is emerging? That's one point. But second point is let's say Trump wants to taco. He's willing to make this deal. He lets the Ayatollahs toll to their hearts desire. And Netanyahu is like, eh, no thanks. Actually, South of the Latani River is not enough for me. I'm going to go all the way to Beirut to get these Hezbollah guys. Or I'm going to keep hitting whatever targets I want inside of Iran because Iran is weakened. And then Iran says, okay, empty deal. We're closing the straight until you can get Israel back on side. Like one example, or the UAE who seems to be pushing the Trump administration to not leave a wounded Iran in charge of the straight-up war moves. And once the United States to finish the job, whatever the heck that means, is it then the Houthis go after the Red Sea and boom, the toll, you know, are the the straights closed because Iran wants to shut it down. I mean, I can imagine scenarios in which Iran having now realized that they have this leverage and that the US Navy cannot train mantis them like they did in '88 say, okay, fine, we will use this. And to your point, they never used it before because I don't know. I would push back against this notion that Iran, Iraq war was more of an existential threat to the regime. Oh, that's mathematically impossible. No, no, but there was also a war against Saddam and Iraq. So yes, the United States was kind of playing all sides there, whatever. But this is the great Satan and the little Satan teaming up and pummeling you with everything rather than you know, it's not pummeling you with anything. That checker with everything. No, they're not. They're not. No, it's a drug thing. They got. No, not at all. Not at all. I mean, absolutely not. First of all, Israel doesn't have a lot. And F 35 and F 16 cannot do strategic bombing. They don't have the payload. The US is not used B 52s or mother of all bombs, keto mobs. Like there's all sorts of things. So like, look, first of all, they're not doing everything they got. So whenever somebody, whenever I start talking to somebody about US Iran game theory, everybody always, they meet a question, Jacob is what you just did. Introduce Israel. And it's like, ah, got you. What about Israel? And I'm like, well, what about China? What about India? What about Pakistan? And so what do I mean by that? I mean that if Iran starts using the Libra of straight up for mousse, because Israel is going to invade an annex Lebanon north of the Lattani river, like Beijing is going to knock on Tehran's door and be like, bro, all right. Like when, when America starts using the R word, okay, regime change. All right, you know, we get it. We get it. We all have to basically deal with you using your sort of democracies, which is the straight up removes. But like, bro, like I don't care where Israel ends or starts. You know, so this is why if we introduce Israel into the game, the need to play our game theory, we then need to introduce everybody else. And my view is that there's absolutely no difference between today and Iran, Iraq war, except the Iran, Iraq war was far more existentially threatening to Iran. I mean, first of all, like let's just pop the breaks on how bad of a situation this is. Millions of people died. Millions. Now, okay, I mean, you could argue this is early going, buddy. But Israel would F-35s is not going to kill millions of Iranians. Iran, Iraq war, Iraq was a proxy of the United States of America, but in you it, financed by the Gulf petrol states that attacked Iran that was far less comfortable with itself. This is 1980. This is like mere months into the Islamic revolution. And it did dabble with closing the straits, but the point is the point is that it's very difficult for them to do that and not incur the wrath of the entire planet and not just the West. In fact, other than Europe and its LNG imports from Qatar, it's really the non-aligned countries like India and Pakistan and Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and Southeast Asia and Japan and South Korea. Okay, those are not really non-aligned. They're American allies, but on this issue they don't have a horse in this race and they're finally China. So you're basically saying that Iran is going to risk the eye of the entire planet because of where they think Israel should land on Lebanon. So I actually see a completely opposite view. I think that Israel-Iran amnesty is a convenient theater of war where we can sequester today's violence into. I think that this is like a safe space for Iranians and Israelis to kill each other, while the rest of us enjoy the fruits of cheap energy. Like, that is where I think this ends. I don't think Israel and Iran ever find common ground. Certainly, they're not going to de-escalate. Like, once America says we're not seeking regime change, Tehran has to then be like, cool. Let me start to calling the straight of Hormuz, so I can support Hezbollah and Hamas. You know, I guess Israel would want money. And then they go back to what they've been doing in the past. If Iran says at that point, no, we also want Israel to withdraw from Lebanon. They're going to lose the patience of the rest of the world, the China's, the South Korea's, the India's, the Pakistan's. They're going to be like, bro, you and Israel have had a problem for like 8,000 years. You're not going to start using Hormuz in 2026 to resolve it. And so I don't think that's in the cards. I mean, how obviously I take it wrong. No, no, no, I take your point. I think my scenario is not very good. And I think I'm conflating something, actually, now that I think about it. I think that I'm conflating the notion that we can get to this scenario where the spice is flowing and Iran is in charge of the straight-of-hormuz. Like, can we get to that peaceful outcome with Israel continuing to push the southern Lebanon? And maybe we can. But like one of the Iranian demands here has been no. Israel needs to stop and needs to go back. Yeah, one of my demands is to have the six-back. You know what I mean? And yeah, no, I mean, you can, that's achievable for you. Well, I guess it's achievable for the Iranian. Yeah, I don't know. Like, look, yeah, I just don't care what I say. No, no, no, no, I hear. I think I'm conflating. I think Israel has to do something. Like Iran has to see Israel do something in order to agree to some type of settlement here. But no, I think the-- No, you don't think that at all. No, I think-- I don't think-- Like, Iran is adding stuff to the list so they can ignore it when a deal is made eventually. You know, and I mean, like, they're going to interdict Indian and Chinese oil because of Lebanese sovereignty. You have so much faith in Iranian, like objective normative compass. No, not Lebanese sovereignty. But to save their last remaining proxy in the Levant from certain destruction, like maybe-- Well, those guys will just go north. They'll go to parts of Syria. They're not controlled by our friendly al-Qaeda terrorists. And Israel's going to go there, too. Like, Israel has not been afraid. Like, this greater Israel thing is like-- It's a real-- Yeah, look, Israel. You see that? You see what I did that? Oh, oh, that's beautiful. No, but like, I think I just don't trust Iranians. When they say that they're doing this for Hezbollah or for Lebanese, like, I think that they found, like, as we would say in Serbian, their spoon fell into honey. And what by which I mean, Americans have effectively, by not properly staffing and supplying this mission, you know, they have allowed Iran to have an acceptable reaction. Like, it's not acceptable to President Trump. It's not acceptable. But from a global perspective, I think everybody is like, yeah, well, you know, like, what did you expect them to do when you killed the head of state? Okay. But what's not acceptable to India and China and Pakistan, and I'm purposely pointing these countries, they're not Western. They're not enemies of Iran, some of our friends, some are acquaintances, some are allies. They're going to say, like, bro, we don't care what Israel's doing in Lebanon. Nobody cares. And Iran will be like, well, I care. And India and China will be like, well, I don't. So keep in my oil. Now, what Iran might do is the bullshit, hootie mechanism, by which you pretend to still be blocking shipping in the Red Sea by targeting Israeli ships. And it's like, who cares? Nobody cares. Nobody on the planet cares. I mean, Israel is here. God bless them. But like, nobody else cares. And I'm sure that Iran will out of solidarity with its Lebanese, you know, like, brethren, the Shia brethren, a Hezbollah, we'll see something like, yeah, we will make sure that no crew out of the Persian Gulf gets to Israel. All right, cool. But I don't see them blocking the shipping of three billion people. Like you're talking China and India together. Like almost three billion human beings are going to suffer because of what Israel is doing to Hezbollah. No fucking way. I mean, I'm going to say that right now. Iran has a trade deficit with China, which is fascinating because it's their third largest supplier of crude. Do you know how much shit Iran has to buy from China to have a deficit with them? It's buying everything that makes Iran a sophisticated modern economy. Like the drones have semiconductors in them. They're not making those in Iran in fabs. So like, yeah, like countries like India and China have immense leverage. And they, while they may have sympathy. And they may have patience with Iran today. I don't think they would in the scenario you're describing. Like if they start using this as a, you know, willy-neely closing the streets because of like, well, you know, Israel invaded Hezbollah. Well, you know, I'm here. I'm going to grant the Israel point. What about our friends in the Emirates or in Saudi Arabia? Because at least according to the reporting that I'm reading, they're not cool with this. They don't want a week in Iran that is emboldened, that gets to toll things through the straight-of-war moves. They are pushing the United States to go further. The UAE is even talking about deploying their own resources, which I, you know, I'd love to see that. Just from a theater, from a theatrical point of view. They have to be on board too. And they also have some say here because the Chinese, the Indians, the Pakistanis, they're getting a lot of their oil from the Saudis and from the Emirates. So like, what if they're not on board here? Maybe that's a better spoiling role to talk about what we're getting. I mean, I think you would require the US not to abandon him tonight. Like, what is it? 8 PM Eastern? 9 PM Eastern. 9 PM Eastern? Okay. So the Benny will present the Trump says. I mean, I think that Saudi Arabia and UAE are not going to fight it out with Iran. You know, so I think, look, I think there is a scenario. Here's a better scenario for what you're trying to achieve, right? I think that it would require Iran to be in certain state of failed stateness, which is a mouthful. And if we don't know who's in charge, and Iran doesn't know who's in charge, then perhaps, yes, you could have factions of the government on occasion shoot a rocket at a VLCC, a very large career carrying a lot of crew out of the Hormuz. I think that would be, you know, like if Iran is not a coherent state, and we've now granted that state, we've all granted them the role of a tall keeper, then, yeah, that would be more likely than I think these other scenarios, because again, if we're going to introduce Iran or UAE or Saudi Arabia to the game theory, then you have to grant the three billion people that actually get crude out of the Middle East, which is India and Saudi Arabia. You have to grant the Taiwanese and the South Koreans who use the helium in the fabs. And this is why it's so difficult to interdict this. This is why Paul at tradies the retens to nuke the spice fields, but doesn't. But because he needs the spice to finance his g-hod. But also because he knows that the moment he does that, it's game over. Like he and his Fremen's will be obliterated themselves by the other houses, because it was the point then fuck it. Like we don't need our eyes. We're all going to die. We'll never have interstellar space travel. So fuck it. You know, and everybody who's listening to this who is not a fan of Dune is just like, what are these people on? And in your case, for you, please join the revolution and watch the villain of absolute art forum that is Dune wanted to do too. Thank you. Like, but the point is that that is the that's the conundrum of Iran. You can abuse your leverage. This is what I find so fascinating, Jacob. I think you're falling into the trap of many others, which is that like there's this view that like the leverage cannot run out. You know, like at some point you can abuse it. You can get on the nerves of like if you have leverage over your parents. You know, and you're constantly playing your mom versus your dad. You know, like eventually you will piss both of them and they're going to be like, no, we're not on the same page. And now you are screwed and you've burned through your leverage because you've united us. And yeah, I do see a scenario, as I've said before in this podcast where Chinese naval vessels are shoulder to shoulder with American. Do you want to bring that about if you're Iran? Yeah, I, yeah, I mean, I would push back against that, but I hear what you're saying. And I actually think you're right. And I think, I think the thing that is really notable for listeners to take away. And what we're saying is that the best case scenario here is that Iran is in full control of the straight-up form moves and charges. Yeah, that's true. The straight-up form is. And that by the way is seen by the world as better than the US Navy. Can we pause maritime access for choke point? I mean, that's the big, that's like the biggest thing, right? Right. Yeah, let's, well, before we pause and talk about that, I just want to say in response to what you just said, I can imagine that and I think that's probably where things are going. That's my 60, 65%. I just think there are a couple stumbling blocks from where we are here to where we're going. And I don't think President Trump is in control of any of those stumbling blocks. I mentioned Israel. I think you did a good job of weakening that, although I think Israel can do some things that will cause problems with the situation. But the Saudis and the Emirates also have to be on board with this a little bit because I think they absolutely would hold up oil exports for three billion people. They don't give a crap at all. They know that they have of a leverage and they'll say absolutely not. We are not going to have the straight up or moves under Iranian control going forward. No oil from us. Yanbou shut down everything from cutter like shut down. We are not going to, so then maybe you get some kind of deal, whereas like Iran and Oman and they share the tolls 50%. I don't know, but they have to agree to that before you get to, you know, the upland, sunlit pastures of Iran controlling the straight up or moves. But like I agree with you that that is the direction that we're going here and that it's remarkable that that's the best case in here. It's remarkable. I mean, like, did we not study the defundational American hegemony is control of the seas? Right? I mean, and this is why I wanted us to pause and like just, because you know, you and I are kind of like disagreeing on scenarios. So sorry. What was that? You're holding up a book. Oh, Mahan. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Alfred Mahan, which is the foundation of kind of American geopolitical imperatives, if there is such a thing, and President Trump is abrogating them. Now, in a way, it is consistent with his, I think, vision. And what I mean by that is that United States of America, once it recognizes the world is multipolar and other countries are not just going to abide by its hegemony, like I've always argued, why then maintain that hegemony? And so instead, why not use quick, vicious bursts of violence in which to get what you want? And I think that what's interesting to me, Jacob, is that when it's well, it was an awesome success. Iran is not. And people are trying to say that the two of them are disparate in the logic behind him. But why can't we just say that like the logic is the same is just one of them was a three point shot buzzer, be it or to win the game? The other one was a miss. So I don't think there's anything inconsistent. Most of those were very clearly not long drawn out engagements. I think if President Trump tacos tonight and withdraws into Clinton's victory and all this stuff, it is perfectly consistent. He just didn't execute one was executed brilliantly. The other one was executed poorly. Like there's no ill, there's no logical inconsistency. And in in that lies this withdrawal from hegemonic functions. The world is not unipolar. Why am I wasting my resources? Why not just withdraw the fifth fleet from Bahrain at that point? It is consistent with everything we've seen. And I will argue that it's beneficial for the region. But I'm going to pause and see what you think. So let's also come back because I actually think not that I think that Iran charging a toll is beneficial necessarily. I mean Iran as a regime will not get more money. But more I think that if the US were to fully extract itself from the Middle East and that also does mean the support for Israel in some shape way or form. I think it would be more beneficial for the region. Not completely. We draw all support for Israel. Just some basic level of protection US has to provide Israel. But I think that the region would be better served because in some ways I feel like I believe the US is almost like a central bank, flooding the zone with liquidity like Huey, like quantitative easing geopolitical quantitative easing which has allowed various inefficiencies to be not resolved. And once the US withdraws a geopolitical qt for those of you who are finance pros, what ends up happening is that the individual players in the region themselves have to find an equilibrium. And your point was like how does Saudi Arabia deal with Iran having a toll? Yeah, yeah, you know what? That is something they're going to have to resolve on their own. Yeah, you know what's going to happen? Iran is going to win because there are civilizational nation state that has had empires in this part of the world for many thousands of years and the Saudis are not. Oh man, I don't know about that. Saudi Arabia did spread Islam as the second largest or delicious in the world. So like, I mean, I don't know. Oh, please, they relocated the caliphate to Damascus as soon as they possibly could. Like they were not, they were not ruling from the Arabian peninsula. Once they managed to convert everybody and moved out, they quickly moved to Damascus into these other places. Mechastilih Shijaz, but fine, fine. Yeah, fine. That's cool. Also, like they weren't the ones fighting Sparta, right? We're not going back to nomads from the Arabian peninsula. I mean, that's a good time. I will give you that is a very, that's a fine counter. Yes. Yeah, they didn't even have, although you know what? Like man, Iran could end up like Greece too. So like, let's, you know, I mean, yeah, that would, I hope that President Trump shows, I hope he doesn't even have a speech. I hope he shows up with a taco salad on the, on the, what is it? The resolute desk or whatever. He's just eating it and he's like, I'm here. I'm ready to, I'm ready to talk. And we funny people like the camera pans to him and he's finishing a taco. He's like, oh, I'm sorry. It just puts it away like, you can't be here. Oh, hello. That's television. Okay. I have a couple of things I want to say here. Sure. The first is, it's your TDS DS is, is clocking in and I'm almost, I'm like, most of the way there with you. The problem is for what you talked about to make sense. You have to, before you do this, you have to create enough capacity inside the United States to take the place at this because all these idiots, all these idiots who are coming to me saying, oh, we don't import oil or LNG from the Persian Gulf. We're fine. Okay. Fine. But you remember all the critical minerals and resources we don't refine in process in the United States anymore. You remember all these feed stocks and inputs and the global economy that we're part of? The price of plastic has just doubled. Okay. The packaging at the grocery store is going to double. We're in fire, because it's a agreement. Yeah. But so if you're going to do what you're talking about here, what you need is at least 12 months of operation warp speed, mega industrial policy to get the United States in shape to pick up the slack. You're not even the United States, the United States and its allies in the state. I don't shake them. And even then you wouldn't be able to do it. But sorry, go ahead. No, but at least then you would have the impetus. You could see the strategic logic, these comments about, oh, it's short term pain for long term benefit. Okay. At least I can like start to divine the strategy. Instead, what did we do? We're on the anniversary of liberation day. We did a bunch of moronic illegal tariffs. And Trump literally thought in his brain, if I do tariffs, I can get rid of income taxes, I can get rid of the debt and people will make things in America again. News flash. Nobody's making shit in America again. Okay, they're all still sourcing things from China or from parts of East Asia. And these are the places that we're getting. Things in these countries are dependent on the Middle East going forward. So I'm with you to a point. If this was all some part of some great brand economic strategy, okay, but you needed industrial policy. Ironically, you needed Trump's foreign policy married with Joe Biden's domestic policy. And then maybe you have something that makes sense to me. But to do tariffs for the last 12 months to mess up all of those different things and to not support US industry in the way and then to go after this particular thing, like it just kind of rings hollow. The second thing, withdrawal from hegemonic responsibilities. Okay, did we really have to use up 800 Tomahawks and spend 200 billion and everything else to do this? Could we not have just decapitated the leadership, told the Israelis to spend the money and gotten out of it? It seems to me that there are lower cost ways to do that. Two more things. Is it beneficial for the region? Depends who in the region? I don't think it's beneficial for the Saudis, the Emirates, the Qataris, Kuwait, not at all. Is it beneficial for Iran? Sure. It's really beneficial, I think, for your India's and your Pakistan's and your China. If they no longer have to worry about sanctions, if they can go trade with who they want to in the Middle East and deal with Iran on their own terms, rather than being afraid of the United States, that's great for them. And that's probably net better for the global economy. I'm not so sure it's great for these shakes in the middle of the desert who convinced themselves that they were the future and captains of technology and industry when really, really they're just guardians of oil, the rest of the world wants. And then lastly, and then come in wherever you want here, I'm remiss at having not brought this up yet at minute 48 and I should have brought it up a little bit earlier. This also intersects with the Russia-Ukraine war in a meaningful way because Zelensky has been hitting Russian oil export infrastructure. He's been hitting the Russian petrochemical industry. He's going around the Middle East to the Saudis and the Emirates saying, "Hey, I've got drone technology. I don't know if you saw this just before we jumped on Iran. This is really cute." They apparently, in a letter addressed to the UN Secretary General accused Ukraine of getting involved in an active role with the real You know, the Iran conflict now part of the Russia-Ukraine proxy war. I mean, it's cute to me that they're going to the UN. But what just to say, like if we're getting rid of, or if we're trying to actually paint the game theory picture here, now Ukraine and Russia are also on the board. And Ukraine is maybe hanging out with the Gulf countries and maybe Russia is supporting Iran and maybe Russia wants higher price for oil. But then Ukraine has to hit Russia in energy infrastructure. And now we're talking about the type of conflict that I wasn't so worried about in the multi-polar world. The multi-polar world's conflicts were localized. They wouldn't go past borders. And now we've got two different conflicts that are maybe starting to intersect with each other and the energy trade and everything. So I wax a little too long there, but take a word. No, I mean, there's a lot of things. I'm just going to focus on one thing, which is like, well, do you. Geopolitical power is just as oil is fungible. Soy's power. Soy's power. And what that means is that US doesn't want to guard the straight-off removes anymore. But you better believe it can shut it down, much better than Iran can. And so it's not like what I mean by that is like. You see, this is where I disagreed that the US should have planned for this by building its domestic helium production. No, because this isn't. Like this isn't resolved. Because like this isn't. This is resolved because everybody needs helium, you know what I mean? Everybody needs it. This is resolved because everybody needs energy. This is resolved because everybody needs everything. And all the US is saying to China, in fact, and you know, you and I have joked on this podcast before. I've said years ago when we started this podcast that if you're a US taxpayer, you are ensuring the security of Chinese energy supplies. And so I think what's happened, like I said that on our pod, I don't know how many, 18 months ago, 24 months ago, I've been making fun of that for five years now with my clients in public speeches. When somebody says like, "It's all about China." I'm like, "Well, actually, no, as an American, you are paying taxes, so China gets a barrel of oil from them at least." I didn't mean that as like that should end. My point is that the United States doesn't need to build all these supplies somewhere else. It's going to get them. Why? It's just going to be. China that's going to secure them. And no, they're not going to secure them and then take them. Because there's only so much supply they can get. Like they're already getting. This isn't a zero-sum game. A phosphate out of Jordan, China is not going to hoard it. It's going to go somewhere where it's going to go, like where it's needed. Somebody else is just going to make sure that that transit goes through. And that's where I think that if the US worked to aggregate its role in the straight of Hormuz, I actually don't think it's that big of a deal. I think that it could have been done maybe more casually, maybe more intentionally rather than in the middle of the crisis where you kind of look like you're abandoning your friends. But the fact that it happens, why does it matter? Like if instead of US is trying to deny controls to the straights, the funny thing about that is that US can come back and just shut down the straights. It has the military capability to do that. So the world won't be changed that much. But we don't want the straight shutdown. The straight being shutdown is an economic catastrophe. But nobody else does. That's my point. Nobody else does, including Iranians who are now, God bless them, figure out a way to make money out of it. And so if you were the United States of America, why continue to hold a military presence in the region? Okay, so Iran now gets something, whereas before it didn't. But there's India, there's Pakistan, there is Malaysia, there's South Korea, there's Japan, there's Taiwan, it's in everybody's interest that it's open, other than Russia and Norway, and maybe Canada, you know the three countries that could maybe benefit from straight up from moves being shut. Other than that. But this, I think this goes back to the centrality of the Sunni Arabs in the region, which is, I mean, I know like the, the Dune comparisons are overrod, but the Fremyn are really the Arabs, not the Iranians. And so, at that point, like if the United States pulls out all of its military infrastructure and everything from the Middle East, which cool, I've been waiting for Trump to do that. He campaigned on that in Trump one point, oh, and he's never done that. If they do that. Yeah, no, no, they're not going to. I'm not worried about UAE or Saudi Arabia at all. This is where I completely disagree with you. First of all, first of all. If the United States pulls back completely and no longer cares if they're there, they don't have to worry about it tomorrow because they're in a much relatively powerful position. But if Iran gets to just get a bunch of money and if China is going to rebuild Iran, 10, 15 years from now. Why would China, oh, but what the brakes on that? Why would China put all of its eggs in one basket? And I think this is America propaganda at work, Jacob. I think in all in the basket, I'm just saying China sees a remotely not opportunity. No, no, no. As contractors would like that opportunity, I'm sure the French would love it too. Everybody wants to rebuild it. How does not Iran's ally? Of course not. I'm just saying they want to rebuild some infrastructure for a cost. No, but instead of taking the toll from us, let us export some of our construction know how to your country and we get to not pay the toll. What I'm seeing is that Sunni Arab states in the Middle East are not allied with America because of love, but because of geopolitical mathematics. There's absolutely no world in which great powers of the world, the great houses, the great families, India, China, America. Okay, fine, America's now out because they don't want to play anymore. No one's going to be cool with Iran dominating the Middle East. Like that's like that's been the case since the end of the Ottoman Empire. And again, this is where I really, really stress this. It's not supernatural. It's not astrology guys. The fact that oil transits through the straight of her moves throughout the last eight years. The fact that nobody has been allowed to dominate the Middle East, not the Arab nationalists, not the Islamists, not the whatever ists, whoever shows up in the Middle East. It's like, I want to unite all the people who happen to speak the same language and believe in the same God. Like that hasn't happened since 1918 in the Middle East for a reason. And it's not American reason. It's not an Anglo-Saxon reason. It's a geopolitical, mathematical, math reason. In other words, there's a bunch of shit everybody wants. No one's going to allow one country, one leader, one ideology to dominate it. So I'm not worried about Saudi Arabia and UAE at all. They're going to find another military ally like that. I'm snapping my fingers for those of you who can't hear it. So China will very quickly. This is the irony of this. The irony here is that China will immediately become United States of America over the last 60 years. They're going to fit into this like a glove if the US were to withdraw. Now, the danger to the United States of America, the danger to the United States of America, is that at some point, we'll try to grow powerful enough to then abrogate phosphate or sulfur or whatever helium exports. That we can talk about. But this idea that Iran is going to run roughshod over Saudi Arabia and UAE ignores that it hasn't done that over the last 70 years, despite having a much greater military advantage over all of the regional countries. Right now, it's probably the weakest Iran has ever been relative to these countries. There's a reason for that because no one will allow a single individual power to unite, just like no one will allow a single individual country to control the supply of the most important precious commodity in the world. Yeah, I mean, Kissinger and Nixon thought that Iran could do that. I mean, ironically, they thought that Iran could be the country that was their main partner in the Middle East in the context of the Cold War because they thought Iran would be more stable than the Gulf monarchies, which by 79 turned out to be, Kissinger always gets the benefit for being this super genius. He was the guy who with Nixon was trying to support the Shah and support Iran as the chief US ally and the reader. So put that on his tab as well. Men plan a law left. There you go. Oh, yeah. There you go. Taking a Yiddish aphorism and putting it into the language of the hijaz. I love it. But I hear you. I'm just saying that without US security guarantees, without US interest, I think the position of those Sunni states becomes pretty, you're right that they're going to have to go find some other security page or maybe it's Turkey. Maybe it's a nuclear deterrent as quickly as possible. I'm just saying, like, is it beneficial for the region? I'm not so sure. I think it is beneficial for the rest of the world. I think the rest of the world then gets cheaper and more reliable energy because you're not having to worry about the United States invading because if you look at recent history, the United States has invaded the Middle East once a decade for the past. That's kind of hilarious. That's the conclusion. But let me go back a little bit. The reason I think it's beneficial for the reason for the region is that again, if you think about finance and you think about all these people who hate QE, I'm not one of them, by the way, I think central banks, searching liquidity was important in 2009, 10, 11, maybe not 15, 16, 17, but the point is, when you overdo anything, when you overdo support and love for your kids, when you don't discipline them, when you overdo the allowance you give your kids, when you overdo central bank liquidity in times of a crisis, what you create are disequilibria. And I think we have a disequilibria in the Middle East right now. And part of the disequilibria is that certain countries in the region, starting with Israel, but really I mean down the line, have kind of had a blank check in terms of their operations, you know? And it creates disequilibria, it creates risk-reward calculus that isn't properly like accounted for. It's not, to your point, like we fear Israeli imperial overstretch, not because we worry about the future of Hezbollah, but because we worry about the future of Israel. Like, imperial overstretch by Israel could happen. Like Netanyahu is out there talking about it's a global superpower. Oh, it's happening. So it's happening, okay. But it might happen for a hundred years. That's the shift I've been making in my mind. That's fine, yes. But like, my point is that I think that when you think about America's role in the Middle East, it's created, and British before it, and the French before it. This isn't about Israeli-Palestinian issues. This is just about the region in general. The external interventions in the region have created a context in which the local players don't necessarily produce a stable equilibrium. Yeah. I mean, that's the bottom line that I'm saying. And so when I think why I do think you might be better for the region if the US took a back seat, and China played, like, and I'm not saying China is going to do a better job being a guarantor of peace and security, but a collection of countries, not just China, but everybody, including the US, provides a more collective, but also a less intrusive role in stabilizing the region, it may have to force countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia to come to the table. And by the way, that's exactly what happened in 2022. In 2021, Iraq was about to descend into a civil war. The US was missing in action, completely missing in action. Both the Trump and the Biden administration were kind of like, "Meh," whatever. And it forced Saudi Arabia and Iran to sit down at the table. Now, in the Western media, it was reported that China played a crucial role. Whether it did or did not, it's irrelevant. I'm not making that point. I'm trying to make a point that Iran and Saudi Arabia actually sat down and had to negotiate because America was kind of missing in action, withdrawing from Afghanistan, allowing the domestic political situation in Iraq at the time to descend into civil war. It was the absence of external power that caused, I think, you know, like allowed that part of the region to withstand the last four years of volatility. Now, of course, that's been abrogated. Why? Because of external involvement. The US came back to the party like, you know, John Volusia had like animal house, just like walking in, like, "Wait, let's have a party." So, I like this take because it's very consistent with what you've been talking about for the last 12 months, which is a multipolar world can be a more peaceful, stable place because it's less about ideology. And the United States, and this is true, I think this is as true of Trump as it was of Bush, as it was of Biden. Like, they're all Neocons. And the United States has not been able to, you know, disaggregate its ideological problems in the region versus its straight power interest in the region. China doesn't care about anything except the spice flowing. The United States's involvement in the region comes out of the Cold War. It is capitalism versus communism. The United States supports the Shah because it's worried that the other reactionary forces will embrace the Soviet Union. It trades back and forth between, you know, they support Saddamah at the beginning, but then there's Iran Contra and then they're back and forth because this is all through a Cold War, sort of Soviet lands. And once we got rid of the Cold War, it was okay, and now they're going to be liberal democracies and everything's going to be fine. And we can't use. Exactly. We continue to use this language. It would be a lot better if China was just like, you know what, we really don't care. Just make sure the oil gets out. And otherwise, like, we're not going to mess around with the United States. It's not done that. But in our last ten minutes, I don't want to, I don't want to let us go without, because you haven't touched on the Russia Ukraine part yet. And this is the part that I'm like most, not most. This concerns me. Like, because I start to spiral into some of this hysteria that's out there because this breaks some of my priors. My priors was, okay, Iran, Israel, the United States can hit each other, but this is going to stay original. Even when the Emirates and the Qataris are involved, I'm like, okay, it's all the Persian Gulf. But now there's like, you're seeing direct overlap between the Russia Ukraine more and this war. And now it becomes something more to me, or we have the potential for second and third order effects that are really, really hard to predict. So what do you think about Ukraine's involvement here about Russia's position here? Because it seems to me that they are increasingly relevant and that they could also play spoiler roles that maybe we're not appreciative. It's interesting because Ukraine is, I think Ukraine is one of the few countries on the planet that has figured out that in a multipolar world, there's no allies, there's no friends, there's no enemies, there's just interests. So Ukraine is actively working against European and American interests by attacking Russian or like sport facilities. And at the same time, you said we had no cards here. Here's one of our cards, Mr. Trump. We have some. And it's war profiteering off of the need for drone interdiction. I don't think that this is, how does it spread further? Russia and Iran are in an alliance. They actually have an alliance. I'm like Iran, China. That's just Western propaganda. They're not allies. China is not cool with what's going on. It's false that they are happy. I mean, they are happy on a strategic level, but the only part of China's economy that's worked is exports and they're about to lose all of them. The world goes into our session. I mean, one of your second or third order effects of what's going on could be mass unemployment in China and potentially domestic unrest. So yeah, I don't think China is like sitting there being like, oh, this is cool. So Russia and Iran were allied before this conflict. They're going to continue to be allied. And all I see, like where you see some sort of like the war is fusing, all I see is Ukraine just, you know, correctly pursuing its own interests and quite frankly becoming a European power. I think, and this is something we talked about before. I have this concept of garrison states. I think states surrounded by war, surrounded by conflict. And in fact, in a state of conflict, quite often become extremely, they punch above their weight. Like South Korea is still in a state of war. South Korea has existed for the past 70 years with a constant threat of three quarters of soil being destroyed. And no, not because North Korea has nukes. North Korea does not need nuclear weapons to destroy three quarters of soil because it's within artillery range. And then you have, you know, Israel as the obvious other example, I would argue, West Germany during the Cold War was a garrison state as well. These are states that get access to cheaper financing, they get access to technology. They would otherwise not get access to and they have a spread of core that comes from having to fight for your survival. And I think Ukraine is just illustrating that. So that's what I see in this. I think Ukraine is becoming an actual European power where I think that the EU should accelerate their membership not because they're doing Ukraine a favor. Like this is the probably top five largest standing army on the planet. Certainly like what top two top three most veteran army on the planet. Probably top one top two in terms of modern technology. Certainly, I mean, we know Americans know how to fight wars. I mean, clearly, but the kind of wars we're going to be fighting in the future, Russia and Ukraine, obviously know that more better than anyone. And on top of that, they have technological innovation. They're showing real geopolitical acumen. So I would say that what you were the takeaway is not that this is going to become a world war. To me, the takeaway is that Ukraine is crushing it actually and that you are, you know, we had a disagreement about Jolansky. Like a year ago. I loved him. I thought he nailed it. I still think he nailed it. And I think you're right. I think that that's starting to actually reveal itself. It's not necessary. I mean, it's not. I don't see a world war scenario. It's just like, what if the end point of all this a month from now is, okay, like stable spice flows out of the Persian Gulf with Iran, tolling them for X amount of yuan. But Russian oil exports go to zero because Ukraine embarks on a campaign like, you know, what what would Godfather Peter was talking about at the beginning of the Russia, Ukraine, where the Russia wouldn't be able to export any oil. That doesn't come true. Like Russia has been exporting oil. So what if in a roundabout way, this conflict is. what allows Olensky to do that and the United States either can't or won't stop it. And so two months from now, we are still in global economic crisis, not because the barrels aren't flowing out of the Persian Gulf, but because Russian barrels are offline. And then Russia, in that state of desperation, what does it do? What does it conscience that it hasn't been able to conscience so far? Maybe there's other things like that's a great take. That's a great take. That's a great take. I mean, which aligns with my view that Ukraine is just pursuing its own interests, right? And if you have the capability to completely shut down Russian exports, I mean, I'm sorry, but like Ukraine's got to do that. Ukraine and Iran are in many ways very similar in that Iran felt that it was existentially threatened by the Americans and Americans, I think, will back off from threatening. Russia never did. You know, Russia never, you know, there was this meme after Venezuela, which I fully endorsed and supported in my raging TDS, DS. The meme was President Trump like holding down Venezuela and saying to Russia, like, hey, this is how you do a special military operation, like America. Fuck yeah, right? Like, he was a great, great meme. President Putin thought on February 21, 2020, he was going to be in a couple of weeks. Trump shows up takes Maduro 40 deck Cubans, no Americans, Don Mike drop, what's up? Well, now the shoe is on the other foot. U.S. is in the situation, but to Trump's credit, I think, knock on wood. Let's see what happens. I don't think he's going to just triple down the way Putin did because, you know, we will see, right? But we'll see it. We'll see if he has his move. Mark moment. I don't know if you saw this interview yesterday of him in the oval where, you know, he asked him about what their Americans really cared about this. And I'll quote the president here. Americans don't care about $4 gas prices. They're feeling a lot safer now that we got rid of that madman called Chame Nite. Turn on the, turn on the TikTok camera. President Trump, Americans care much more about $4 gas than they care about the fact that you assassinated Chame Nite. You're supposed to know this because the whole reason you're sitting at that desk is because Joe Biden thought the exact same way that you did. Can we get these boomers out of here, Mike? No, but wait, wait. I think there, I know what you mean. And I respect it. But I also would say, but he's declared a victory. Like he's saying like assassinating Chame Nite elder and putting it, Chame Nite, the junior, is somehow like making anyone safer. So like God bless him. He's declared a victory in taking his toys and going home. Unlike Putin. And that's what I was getting at. You've got Iran and Ukraine. You've got Iran and Ukraine, right? These two countries existentially threatened. But what is facing a president Trump who knows how to play media, knows the PR and quite frankly, I think I think he has more marbles than Putin. Sorry, but I think we're witnessing the art of declaring victory whenever you want. Putin is so stubborn about this stupid Nord-Eastern corner of the Netsk that he hasn't, and he could have declared victory too. He could have declared victory at any point and he never did. And so Iran is facing somebody who's willing to just declare victory, go home. I think Iran, therefore, will have to eventually say, okay, fine. Like we'll just make money off of her moves and de-escalate. You've created what you're underscoring is that Vladimir Putin actually, once you get down to the bare essence of his soul, he actually has some principles. And one of his principles is that Ukraine does not exist. He cannot let it go. You sound like John Goodman in the Bigelwebowski. Say once you will about national socialism, but at least it had an ethos. That's the greatest compliment I've ever gotten that I saw. But look, what am I getting at? What I'm getting at is that we just spent, and I know we're out of time, we just spent an hour and 13 minutes debating whether or not Iran is going to de-escalate once Trump takes his toys and goes home. And you just brought in a really interesting zag, which is that unlike Iran, which is facing an off-again, on-again Trump, who knows what he believes in. Certainly not that Iran doesn't have the right to exist. Ukraine is actually our facing a country that hasn't decided to take its toys and go home. President Putin has not declared victory at various times he could have. So actually, we just spent an hour and 13 minutes discussing how Iran eventually will de-escalate because of the game theory of their situation, but it's Ukraine that actually just learned a really valuable lesson, which is like, holy shit, what have we been doing? Screw fighting Russia. Let's go all the way and destroy all of their energy facilities with drones. So I like your zag, and there you go. There is how you can leave. I know our fans are mad at us because we're not talking enough about doom and gloom. So there you go. We just landed the plane in doom and gloom land. The doom and gloom is this because this will probably come out after the speech. If on that speech, President Trump has his hustling bubarak moment or his Vladimir Putin moment and he triples down, buckle up your seatbelt to all of it. It's going to be off. Oh, wait Jacob. Okay. That's the obvious take. If the US starts invading carg island and stuff, if that's what the speech tonight is about, you're absolutely right. Mark is going to be down massively. But I think everybody listening to this knows it. I mean, if you're listening to geopolitical cousins, I think you're probably already self-selected to know that if President Trump doubles down and doesn't declare victory tonight on April 1st, then it came over for the economy. But if he does, what you've revealed is that there is this other outcome, which is that it's not Middle East. It's not Iran in the US that we should be worried about. It's that Ukraine has learned a lesson from what just happened. And I love the fact that we just came to this on the show like right now in real time. I mean, this is why again, this is a tight-heavy conversation. But yeah, you want to be bearish about something? Is that Ukraine looks around and says, oh, okay. So this is how you react to losing oil supply. You actually start caring about stuff. Oh, and by the way, I know they've been trying to do that for 12 months. They've obviously been attacking. But I think there's been some level of restraint in Kiev and Zelensky. I think he's felt like, okay, well, I shouldn't piss off my Western supporters too much. But after just witnessing what's going on, where all the attention focuses on her moves in Israel and Iran, he's probably saying, no, you know what? Gloves are off. Like, let's say in every drone we have in the direction of Russian energy infrastructure. And let's start want and warfare because I want my share. You know, I want my core. Yeah, and here's another great thing. And we'll send our extra drones to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates so they can send the drones at Iran because they don't want to give up either. Boom, we're going to destroy everything unless you give us what we want. Yeah. Okay, stop. I think we'll leave it there. Anything else we want to tell the listeners cousin? I think that's it. You know, go Lakers. Hopefully we have jet fuel for playoffs. You happen? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, we can always just do it in the bubble, bring them all to one place. I mean, Lakers are one and oh. Let's go. Like, second banner coming up in the bubble. All right. Cheers.