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Sagar Enjeti

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com Good morning everybody. Happy Monday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?

Ryan Grim

Indeed we do. So more American service members have been killed and wounded. We've got the details of that as we seem to be hurtling back towards all out war. Murtaza Hussein is also going to join us to take a look at the strikes between the Iran and the US and try to glean what we can about the military strategy involved from each. We're also going to do a deep dive into the oil market. How long can it sustain without massive skyrocketing prices? Prices are already going back up, so we'll take a look at that as well. Friend of the show, Phil Wegman with a big scoop on some insider trading alleged scandal between a Republican member of Congress and a prominent MAGA influencer. We've got new details about the psycho ice maniac who killed an immigrant in Maine. Pretty shocking who this guy was and what his ex wives have to say about him as documented in court records. And Tim Dillon is sounding off on J.D. vance. Had to play a few of these clips. They're quite extraordinary. I of course watch the whole show, which is definitely worth checking out. By the way.

Sagar Enjeti

Shout out to Tim. Thank you to everybody who's been subscribed to the show. BreakingPoints.com if you're able to support us. We also have our newsletter. Let's put it up there on the screen. It's totally free if you want to sign up. BreakingPoints.com and of course you get access there to half of our newsletter. Full premium members get of course access to the full thing. It's a very useful product. You get links and all that to the show and you get to help support our work. We had a great day on Thursday of Ro Khanna and Thomas Matthew that we're here in studio totally enabled again by Our Premium so breakingpoints.com variable supports if you're watching this on YouTube please hit subscribe to our YouTube channel. Listening to this podcast please share an episode with a friend really helps other people find the show. But let's go ahead and start as Krystal said very sadly with the death's announcement of American service members. Let's actually put the first element up here on the screen. Quote US Teeters on return to all out war with Iran after more troops were killed. So the details of this are really tragic. We now have currently three life likely service members who were killed in that attack on a base in Jordan and another who was killed yesterday in Iraq during a detonation of an unexploded Iranian drone. That one appears to have been a very serious accident while the drone was being decommissioned or you know, exploded in a controlled way. The debris ended up striking and killing another person, not the person who was doing that. In terms of those three service members, two have been confirmed to have been killed in action. We learned the names of two of them just this morning at 25 year old first lieutenant and a 19 year old private, 19 year old girl from Texas. Which just kills me on. I can't continue to talk about that one. The last one is a last one service member. We don't have their identification yet. Appears to have been. They were initially listed as missing. Some remains have been found. So the identification process for that body is now underway. But what we do know is that the video of the strike and we can show that one all of you just demonstrates how, you know, how difficult the United States now finds itself in a position where this is a Air Force base in the middle of Jordan where previously we have had seen strikes in terms of drones. But look at what that looks like when a ballistic missile slams into the middle of the base and of course kills likely three service members but also does a significant amount of damage. A lot of the after action report that has come out from this strike actually demonstrates the sheer nightmare that we are all living in right now. It appears that these missiles are being fired directly in a way that having learned through multiple months now of strikes on US Bases that Iran has actually developed new tactics to be able to penetrate American systems. There's a lot of speculation obviously not confirmed right now as to the low stock of interceptors which we have hammered home here from the beginning on the show. Nobody knows what the current stockpile is. Somewhere between 50 and 80% of US interceptors are likely already depleted, which means we could be in rationing. And this is what rationing would look like is that you just simply don't have the ability to hit everything. So it's either or. The Pentagon has not given any details. And we also know, and this is the element guys I sent this morning is that there have been hundreds of now casualties which have been hidden from the American people. We could put this up from the New York Times which says the Pentagon has withheld dozens of US military injuries now in the Iran war. Dozens actually just this week, quote, attacks injured dozens of service members, damaged several helicopters according to several US Officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. And that included those strikes that actually killed these multiple service members. In this particular strike as well as across the region. The Pentagon has not released any updates whatsoever on those strikes. They also have reduced the information in terms of the strikes that they are conducting, which demonstrates again that they are very fearful of the amount of information the Iranians have been able to take in and to adapt their tactics. No signs yet that things are abating. Trump previously in A Wall Street Journal report about two months ago had said that Trump is content with the ceasefire strategy as long as no Americans are killed. And now we have four that are killed. Well, you know, three likely, another confirmed. So four likely deaths, all just in a 24 hour period, which all of this is not looking good right now.

Ryan Grim

Yeah, and many more. There's, you know, indications that in that strike there are many more serious, serious injuries as well. In that original Washington Post piece that we had up on the screen, they're saying not only are we low on interceptors, we're low on pretty much everything. There were officials that they spoke to. I'll read this portion, speaking on the condition of anonymity, cautioned that the expansion of US Operations will be limited by dwindling stockpiles of air defense and long range munitions and constraints on the ability to surge more troops and aircraft into the area. Because of battle damage, we do not have enough to safely sustain operations. And I don't think the White House is aware of that. Just sit with that for a second. This official within the Trump administration is saying we don't have the troops, we don't have the long range munitions, we certainly don't have the interceptors to continue with this operation, this escalation that we've been pushing forward. And I don't know that the administration, that the White House, Trump knows about that. They go on to say military experts have said that in addition to the toll taken on US Equipment and munition stocks, the US Is unprepared for possible ground operations inside Iran that Trump last week refused to rule out. So this could be the reason why, after a series of high level, quite significant strikes, there actually was a reduction, seemingly again, based on what we can glean from public information, there was a reduction in the number of strikes that, you know, as the weekend progressed, it could be simply due to limitations and what we're able to do at this point. So that is absolutely extraordinary. And then the other thing I wanted to point out with regard to the strike on this Jordanian base, we'll talk to Mads more about this because he'll have more detail. But Jordan has long been very close US Ally. We send them billions of dollars and they allow us to operate basically freely within their country. They also have very large Palestinian population, including actually the Queen, who is Palestinian, Jordanian. And so they have a very sensitive political situation as well, which is why they've always downplayed the presence of US Troops on their soil. But very clearly we've been operating there For a long time. We're not particularly shy about talking about it here. The IRGC put out a statement thanking the Jordanian people for providing the targeting information that enabled these strikes. And they thank in particular some members of the Jordanian military. And this is an important piece to keep in mind. I don't know whether that's true or not or whether that's just what they want to project. But it is important to keep in mind that even though the governments of these nations, these Gulf nations that we're operating out of, or Arab nations, in the case of Jordan that we're operating out of, even though the governments may be aligned with the US the people is a very different story. So even though they're monarchies and don't have freedom of democracy, in most instances you still have pressure from people that creates also a very volatile political situation and a lot of exposure for us in the region.

Sagar Enjeti

That's almost certainly not true in terms of the military piece, but it's almost certainly true whenever it comes to the population. Actually, we can just give you an example. Let's put a 2 up here on the screen just to show all of you. This is satellite imagery which was released by Iran, which actually shows many of the strikes across the region. So we have Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar. I mean, Bahrain, we have talked a lot over the last several months here on the show about their Shia population, how they had serious domestic uprisings. Actually a significant part of their population is on the side of Iran. Right. And so of course it would make complete sense that they probably have, you know, fifth columnists and others who are much more siding with the Iranians than with the United States. Jordan, as you just said, that one is self explanatory and that's where many U.S. service members all were just killed within the last 48 hours. Iraq, also major Shia population. Don't have to tell anybody about the US popularity in Iraq where actually the prime minister in the United States just president just met a few days ago and in it they committed to a removal of US forces eventually from Iraq. Anyone wanna tell me why they're even there since after 2003? But you know, of course that's the American empire and then Kuwait and Qatar. So all of these countries have bases tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands at this point, we really have no idea. That's one thing I also wanna emph. I just see that we are getting such a tiny little picture of what's actually happening. These Gulf countries have cracked down so hard, we have no clue what's coming out of that reach like the videos and all that from the early days of the war. They are not going to allow any of that anymore. We also know that international news agencies and others are under strict censorship regime. A lot of the population, they're all being monitored for what they can and can't put out. We know here in terms of the U.S. service members that have all been wounded, that all of that was covered up and it did, you know the battle damage assessment others is coming by anonymous leaks, very likely from people in the military who are shocked, who are horrified about what's happening. And we're really, I mean I feel in a sober mood. I think we're on the precipice. I just do not see a way out at this point. We will talk with Maaz about There's a new 10 day ceasefire. I mean we've just seen it all before at this point. The strategic logic of it just keeps coming back to the Iranians want to exact pain. Their global strategy is one where we punish the US consumer. We'll talk later. Oil so gas is back at $4 a gallon at a national price. Their other strategy is to cause significant chaos and to create costs on the Gulf countries for their alliance with the United States. And you know, and these service members in particular you could say in the beginning like oh, you know they were, they were. America was dragged into this war by the Israelis. Not entirely true, but you know, partially true at the very least. This is Trump, like this is all just Trump. Israel's not even firing as of right now. These people die. What did these people die for? I know that's an uncomfortable question but how can like this is so entirely undoubted. There's a 19 year old girl there who is dead because of these strikes. Also if you, if you look at their occupation, they all work in missile defense and in artillery units. So what does that tell you about Iranian targeting? So they know exactly where the specialized units are. Remember when that space force casualty was killed as well. So they're directly have high levels of intelligence and they're creating significant costs here. And for them they have had orders of magnitude people be killed but they're living in an existential conflict. Like one of the clips we'll show people in a little bit is the Foreign Minister Arachi talking about do you know what it's like to sit in a meeting and think you're gonna get bombed? That puts you in a genuine bunker mindset. None of us are there. We can't even tell you why the polling came out today. The Iran war is the least popular war in the history of polling. In the history of polling. It took six years for Americans to get to this point. Whenever it came to Vietnam, and even then, there were still some dead enders and others. There's nobody, 30% or whatever of the country, only who is still mainlining Fox News, who still believes a lot of the stuff.

Ryan Grim

But the problem is those people in Trump's base are overwhelmingly in favor of it. And so even though you would look at the national picture and say that it argues in favor of getting out, I mean, the problem for him politically is if he gets out and accepts the surrender, he knows he's politically screwed. If he does something insane, ground incursion, nuclear weapon, God forbid, there's some chance maybe it works out. So I guess the way he's looking at it is, well, taking some chance, having some possibility that I can turn this thing around is better than the certain humiliation that is entailed in accepting the Memo of understanding that's on the table. And by the way, we just sort of assume that what was agreed, the framework that was agreed to before, is gonna continue to be on the table. And I don't think that's a safe assumption whatsoever, because what Trump has effectively done here is proven the hardliners in Iran correct. After they sign this memo of understanding, then the first thing they do is go out and try to establish this other corridor that the US can control in the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians said, look, we knew we couldn't trust these people. See, we can't trust them. You can't negotiate them, you can't work with them. We should have continued our own, striking, our own bombing campaign so that we could gain more leverage, and they have not experienced enough pain. That is the view that is going to be ascendant in Iran because of our actions here. So with that being said, let's go ahead and bring in Murtaza Hussein from Dropsite to talk about everything that has transpired so far.

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price void in Florida Maz, good to see you.

Murtaza Hussein

Good to see you both.

Sagar Enjeti

Good to see you, man.

Ryan Grim

So your reaction to the events over the weekend, these escalating strikes, the service members who have been killed? Where do you think we are at this point?

Murtaza Hussein

Well, you know, it's really heartbreaking actually, because I think we're told many months ago that the war was over and we're still taking casualties in the region as a result of the conflict. I think if the war were to continue, it's only going to in terms of casualties and escalation and so forth, because the phase of the war is now moving to one where the defending party, who's trying to wage a war of attrition, really has the advantage. The way the Iranians fought the war was effectively in the early stages. They were using their older ballistic missiles to try to drain the missile defenses throughout the region. And you know, that meant that The US Is fighting for a position of advantage because its defenses were stronger. Those have either been destroyed now or significantly depleted by those attacks. And what you saw in these attacks with the Iranians are using their more advanced missiles, the ones that they were holding in reserve, and they're doing more damage, they're more accurate, they're hitting farther away from Iran. They're striking targets with great precision. And that will continue if the war continues on in this fashion. So I think that the MOU really was a great time for the US to end the war because it was ending in a position while the deal, the terms were not great for the US it was ending at a time when and Iran's advantages as the traditional power were not really coming to bear. If the war does go on a lot, it's going to be quite a bit more of this. And it's really heartbreaking because I saw today, I think Sagar mentioned that the 19 year old, the 23 year old were killed. There's no reason for those people to be in the Middle east dying in a war against Iran. But if the war does continue, unfortunately, there's going to be a lot more of that and we'll also see more pressure for a ground campaign because the air campaign itself is not designed to defeat Iran. It's not really capable of doing that. That and the way that the war is also fought, the campaign intensity of the air goes down over time. So really, February 28, March 4, that period, that was the peak intensity. And it only goes down from there. And these destruction of bases is also going to further reduce the effectiveness of the aerial weapon. So there'll be more pressure to take an island to launch some sort of ground campaign. And that will mean more casualties inevitably as the war continues.

Sagar Enjeti

Let's put a 8 up there on the screen or say a 7. I apologize. The US actually attacked a nuclear power plant site in Iran. Several missiles hit the power plant. This caused some retaliation from the Iranians who appear to have hit. Let's put a six, please, on the screen. Multiple desalination and power plants in Kuwait. The targeting of civilian infrastructure, both from the United States and then in retaliation from Iran, kind of fulfills, you know, this escalation trap that we've been worried about. Mas. But does the United States have the military capacity to sit here and take this for even another year? I mean, everything that we've seen so far from the depletion of interceptor stocks in just a matter of 39 days, God only knows what those numbers are right now. After these series of strikes currently, I mean, it does seem to create a lot of where you literally have to do a ground invasion or buckle in the future, or you will simply have nothing left whenever it comes to firing back at missiles being sent to you.

Murtaza Hussein

Well, you know, that's exactly the problem, because first of all, the depletion of interceptor stocks and the destruction of air defenses means that the war becomes more dangerous for the US and its allies as it goes on. And we're currently entering that phase at the moment. But secondly, there will be more pressure because the US can either capitulate or leave the conflict without a deal. I think a deal itself, for many reasons we can talk about, is probably becoming more unlikely. Or it could escalate to the ground and escalate to try to invade the Iranian coast, try to invade certain islands in Iran and capture them and so forth. But that really does not make a lot of sense to me either, because first of all, leaving aside the casualties that would take place in that circumstance, it's not clear why that would end the war. If the US Takes a couple islands in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran will fire ballistic missiles at those islands. People will be killed in those attacks. There'll be a question of how to resupply people on the islands, how to keep them there, what they'll be doing while they're there, how to keep them safe and so forth. Those questions won't go away. And that escalation will lead further escalation, because then if you hold the islands, you may need to hold part of the coast to keep the soldiers there safe. And then when you're on the coast, you'll be hit by drones and ground attacks. You'll have to invade further inland. And really the logic of it is eventually you have to invade the country all the way to Tehran to depose the government by ground, because that's the only way of even theoretically keeping people making your previous gains sustainable. And that if you look at the size of Iran, it's a country of 92 million people, it's the size of Western Europe. You really need a draft to be able to even think about doing that. And even a draft itself would probably not generate enough brigades to hold the entire country and pacify and so forth. And I don't think anyone in America really wants that. You mentioned earlier, the war is the most unpopular war in America. And since polling has been done before a draft, before a crown campaign and so forth, really at the early stages, so it seems politically impossible. But the US And Trump himself has kind of boxed himself into this situation whereby he can either walk away, which I think he still can do, or he can be trapped in the situation of greater and greater escalation, which will mean much more casualties without any guarantee of a victory at the end.

Sagar Enjeti

Right.

Ryan Grim

Maaz, we got some significant developments I want to get to in just a minute, but I wanted to get your sense, sense of what you read into the targets that were chosen, both on the Iranian and the American side. So first, let's start with why are the Iranians hitting Jordan so hard at this point, which is a relatively new development here? What do you think is the strategy at play?

Murtaza Hussein

Well, you know, there are two things here. First of all, in the early phases of the war, Iran hit really hard the bases which are closer to Iran. And a lot of those bases have been disabled now, so they can't really be used. They're not deemed safe enough to be used for air campaigns. A lot of the infrastructure there has been destroyed and so forth. And what they also did was they hit a lot of the radars and air missile defenses, which were between itself and Jordan. So Jordan is basically the next domino in line. And what the US did was when the bases closer to Iran became unsafe or destroyed, they moved more of their assets to Jordan. So Jordan became the primary hub, one of the major, most important hubs for waging the war against Iran. And now it's at the front line, and now it's being hit really hard. And now those bases are going to probably most likely be deemed unsafe or disabled for the fight going forward. And the aircraft will have to move further away. So they'll have to move probably to Israel. Israel is further, obviously from Iran. It's also more defensible from the air because more compact and the air defense density is greater around its critical sites. So. So I think that's probably the next step. What Iran is doing is trying to disable all the bases in the Middle east which can be used to attack it, which are close to it, render them unusable for the war. And if you have to fly from Israel, you'll have to fly. There'll be fewer flights, there'll be longer distances and so forth. And the effectiveness of an air campaign fought at a long distance is much, much less than those which are fought all on Iran's borders. So it'll be for the, there should be benefit. And I think that the strikes against Jordan will probably continue until that base is abandoned or not used for active operations or the Jordanians make some sort of deal with Iran to that end. And I think that's kind of the only way out of the war at this point. If the Arab countries around Iran decide to make deals with Iran to end the war and say they won't use territory and airspace to be used for attacks against Iran, absent agreements like that in the region, I think that the world will probably continue and it won't continue in a way which is favorable to anybody.

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Summer is here At Orderly Meds. We know this time is a reminder that life is full of new beginnings. Whether you're celebrating the nice weather, starting a new chapter, planning a vacation, or simply looking ahead to what's next, this season can be the perfect time to invest in yourself and your health. If you've struggled with weight loss and are curious about GLP1 medications, orderly meds can help you learn about your options. Through a simple virtual process, you can connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether treatment may be appropriate for you. Getting started is fast, convenient, and happens online from the comfort of home. This summer, consider a new approach to feeling your best. Visit orderlymeds.com podcast to learn more. That's orderlymeds.com podcast orderlymeds.com podcast because every new season is an opportunity to take the next step forward. Compounded medications are not fda. FDA approved, eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

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Sagar Enjeti

turning now, significant breaking news literally happened moments before we just started. So let's go and put this up here on the screen. Breaking the Houthis of Yemen have announced a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia, quote, effective immediately. Saudi Arabia has until now exported about 4.5 billion barrels per day from in the Red Sea, most of it heading south through the Bab Al Mandeb Strait between Yemen and Djibouti. So this means mas this has been the literal nightmare scenario. This has been a significant way for Saudi Arabia's economy to remain at least somewhat resilient through the Strait of Hormuz blockade. With both the Strait of Hormuz blockaded and the Bab Al Mandeb Strait for Saudi Arabian oil, this will significantly impact, as we said, 4.5 million barrels per day that we're currently transiting through the Bab El Mandab Strait and actually keep keeping the oil market at least somewhat afloat throughout this last five month period. Your reaction to the significance of this and then of course, building on the strategic problems for the United States and the world coming out of this announcement?

Murtaza Hussein

Well, absolutely. This is a close to worst case scenario for how the war could escalate because the reason the global economy has not imploded to the degree it could have because of the war is because there was this pressure valve in the Baba Mandeb and the Red Sea, but which a lot of the oil, not all of it, but many much of it from the region could have been pumped from this pipeline across Saudi Arabia and then through the Suez and so forth or down through Asia. That's now theoretically, if this announcement holds and they really do enforce it, that option is closed now. And what also is happening is Saudi Arabia is being brought into war much more directly, whereas they've been somewhat more aloof from the conflict to date. And I think this is now a situation where the global economy economies in Asia and Europe will be very existential, potentially threatened on a short time frame and the US Also will be impacted very greatly. So the fact that the war even got to this point is very, very alarming. And the fact that the Houthis and the Iranians are now taking this step is very, very dangerous because it suggests they themselves have now decided that the prospect of a negotiated solution is unlikely or almost impossible at this point. And they're using their own nuclear option here or their own, one of the highest escalatory options that they had on the table, that they had not deployed in the first few months of the war and I think that the calculation is that if the US Cannot make a diplomatic agreement, if it's, you know, can't be trusted or they can't have a consensus in the US system strong enough to push forward with the deal, then the only other option is to basically send a very, very strong deterrent message. But by destroying the global economy, destroying the US economy and basically laying down a marker that no president will ever want to do this again because it was so painful, if you can't make a deal, you can at least inflict that lesson. And it's a very painful lesson for people around the world, for people in America, people in Iran as well will suffer a lot. But it seems like if they're closing the Babelman, they've decided that that's the only way out of the situation. Now I still always hold out hope that every escalation will result in some sort of ra rapid diplomatic shifting. And there's some talks about proposals for a new 10 day deal between the US and Iran, a pause in strikes to talk again. We'll see how those play out. But I think that this move by the Houthis suggests that the odds of that are quite slim. And really everyone is looking now towards the deterrence option which will be very, very painful for everybody. And could see some of those worst case scenarios of oil take place within the next month.

Ryan Grim

One part of the strategy is the global economy through the oil market. And part of the strategy for Iran as well is making life unlivable, making, you know, punishing the their own neighbors who have hosted US bases, who have allowed the US to use their terrain to launch strikes in some instances, who have launched strikes themselves. And as part of that, you know, the US is striking civilian infrastructure inside of Iran. They're striking a desalination plant, for example, and the Iranians also struck a Kuwaiti desalination plant. Talk about that aspect of things and the significance here of these water plants and what it means for the region.

Murtaza Hussein

Sure. So in the Gulf Arab states, the countries are basically not habitable without these water salination plants. It's a very arid, very hot environment. You need packaged goods in large numbers. You need these water treatment plants which separate the salt from the water and make it drinkable. They need those. If they didn't have them effectively, you'd have to abandon these countries. So they're very, very important. In Iran, in southern Iran, it's extremely important to have these plants and some significant amount of the population relies on them. In total view of the country, it's probably just a few percentage points. Iran's a very, very large country. You know, there are other sources of water. They do have water problems, but you know, they have access to multiple bodies of water. And a lot of their water problems are really due to mismanagement. It seems like as long as it was climate change. But in the Gulf States, it's a much more existential place problem for all entire country. So if these plants were destroyed, you would have to see abandonment of major urban centers. You'd have to see maybe some countries will be literally not habitable anymore in the short term. So that's really very serious escalation. I think that's also something that the Iranians have said that if you go for us with the nuclear option in some fashion, we can escalate to the highest level with you. So they said that if you target our civilian infrastructure, we will hit back proportionately. And they did do that in Kuwait after and their desalination plants were hit in southern Iran. But I did see in the last 48 hours at least the US as far as we've seen, has not hit major civilian infrastructure in Iran after that. They have been hit significant numbers of bridges. No desalination plan has been hit again, at least in that time. So the deterrent message of the Iranian strikes may have been effective in that sense. So I do hope that we don't see any more civilian infrastructure strikes because that would trigger, trigger really, really catastrophic scenarios. And you know, if you had a situation where, you know, Dubai or Qatar or Kuwait is being literally evacuated and rendered inhabitable, the knock on effects for the global economy and the US economy even in the short term would be very, very catastrophic because of the linkages there financially and resources and have been developed. So really it's a threat to the entire world if that were to happen, happened.

Sagar Enjeti

Let's put B2 up there. This is an interview that the Foreign Minister Arachi gave to local Iranian media here. He says that the US made two miscalculations. They started the war. They didn't account for resistance. Quote, the Zionist regime thought that with a short attack they could destroy everything. When that didn't happen, they were forced to stop the war. Something that he expounds on on pretty extensively here is specifically about the lead up to the negotiation process and about zero enrichment and what they the goal posts that were constantly moving. We obviously covered that extensively at the time. But given that this can only truly end with a deal, what do you make then of their position being where it is? And you said previously that it's very unlikely that we actually could be able to get a deal. From your assessment so far.

Murtaza Hussein

Yeah, unfortunately, it's hard to see it in the short term, and I would like to be surprised in that term on that point. But if you look at the situation in context, Iranians signed a deal with the US About a decade ago. It was a huge risk. The people in the system who were the reformers camp took a real big gamble and they were hit really hard when the deal was violated by Trump in 2018. And then again last year and this year they took part in negotiations with the U.S. aragchi himself delivered a deal to the U.S. side which was much more generous actually than the JCPOA in terms of U.S. interests. And both times in the middle of those negotiations, Iran was attacked. And that's attacking someone and killing negotiators is something very extreme that was not even done by belligerent parties in World War II because it was known to be how damaging it is. The idea of having a deal going forward, even, even if it's a country you have far more enmity with than Iran, you wouldn't do that because you may need to talk to people in the future and you need to have a degree of trust to make those talks happen. So that specific principle was attacked during these conflicts. So despite all that, they still somehow got the MOU after a few months of fighting. And then the MOU immediately fell apart because it was perceived that the US immediately after signing it, didn't actually implement the terms and then started doing things which undermined Iranian leverage, leverage in Lebanon, and then start surging more troops to the region. It made it really seem like they were just preparing to the ground to attack again in the short term or medium term. And then from the Iranian perspective, you might as well just initiate the war now rather than let your leverage be depreciated. So for all those reasons, it's hard to see how the trust gap between the two sides gets remedied here. But I do think that there's one specific variable in between which is not really promising, but it could work. Work. And I think it's what's working right now, or attempting to be put into effect is if the Gulf Arab states issue a veto and say, no, we will not allow our bases to be used for war anymore. We won't allow airspace to be used because we're going to be destroyed if the war continues. And the whole premise of their relationship with the US was that the US will protect them at all times. They'll make sure that there's basically Switzerland, levels of peace going on here so that the global economy, people can invest here, people can come and live here and so forth. And if they can't defend them this, then the relationship doesn't really work anymore. And what's happening is the US keeps escalating the war with Iran and these countries are taking a million missiles to the face and drones to the face every single day. The day after the attacks in Kuwait are a really huge warning to Dubai and Qatar and other countries in the region what could happen to them. So if those countries issue a veto, take really strongly that they will not let the war continue. It would make it very difficult for the US to continue and they would take a lot of the incentive for continuing out. I don't think we're necessarily there yet, but that's, that's the only path that I could see that could help. And there are people in the US system like the more advanced camp of people who may not have the upper hand. They could use that such a shift to gain advantage and push forward their view of how the war could end. Because if you look at the way the MOU fell apart, it seems like the US administration was not working all on the same page. Vance seemed to be in favor of pushing the deal forward, creating a structure with Iran which would allow it to continue. And then Rubio went to Lebanon and did something which really undermined to cross purpose of the deal almost automatically. So I think that that dynamic could be shifted if the Gulf Arab states were to take a very firm unequivocal position that the war cannot continue because they will not survive if it does continue.

Ryan Grim

Lastly, Maz, I was wondering if you could help out our friends over at Fox News who are a little bit confused about the way things have been going. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Fox host Maria Bartiromo here and her confusion about the situation. You know, CENTCOM says that there will

Sagar Enjeti

be outsized action in retaliation, but I don't understand how it's possible that Iran

Ryan Grim

has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at Gulf countries and US military bases. Because the US has obliterated Iran's military

Sagar Enjeti

and the President continues to reiterate that.

Ryan Grim

Yes. And if you look at the numbers of missiles that they've been able to fire off from the beginning of this war, late February, early March, and what they're able to do now, it is very seriously degraded, as they say. Maaz, she's so close to getting it so close.

Murtaza Hussein

Yeah. You know, it's so funny because they keep. And the Victoria quotes there were saying that the missile capacity has been degraded. You know, they're actually firing missiles at a steady rate after the first few days of the war continuously. Because their whole strategy of the war is they need to fight for a very long time. There's a war of attrition. So the amount of missiles used will be conserved and calibrated at a certain level to preserve the ability to fire for like a year or two years or something like that, indefinitely. The Iranian military capacity was not obliterated by the war. They did significant damage to leadership personnel. Many dozens of people were killed. They destroyed a lot of civilian infrastructure. The schools were destroyed, bridges and so forth, Forth. And some military bases were hit. But Iran's primary and also the Navy was hit very hard, which Rubio and so Forth been talking about a lot too. But Iran was not primarily known as an air power or naval power. It's a missile power and asymmetric warfare power. So what they did was they built their missile bases into these mountains, into the country. So they knew that they didn't have the ability to develop a large sophisticated air force because they were under sanctions. They don't have access to the huge supply chains you need to build F35s or F16s. They also can't really build high tech air defenses for the same reason. But they did know that they had geography as a tool and they had a very, very large educated population of engineers and so forth. So they relied on tunneling and engineering, build bases into these mountains, underground, so forth that would be impervious to U.S. air attacks. And they've been firing from those bases throughout the war. And that's where they're firing from terrorists today and the US air attacks. It's really unfortunate if you think about US conservation of US Power, because they effectively did was in the early days of the war, they fired very expensive, very rare standoff munitions would take years to produce. And they fired them basically into solid granite. And at most what they did was they disabled the entrances to these bases. But then within 48 hours or a week, bulldozers came and reopened the entrances and those bases are operating again. So basically you fired the extreme, extremely valuable missiles you need to deter China and to deter Russia and so forth, fired into Iraq basically just to delay Iranian missile capacity. And what the Iranians did over the past month, during the ceasefire, more than a month, they excavated all the bases. So the bases are operating at the level they haven't been operating at since the start of the war now. So that's why you see these missile strikes being so effective. And now also the US Capacity I mentioned earlier, the radars in the region have been destroyed or rendered inoperable, so the missiles are getting through further. So what they're saying in the conversation, it's really they've been lied to about the actual reality of how the war has been fought, how much damage is done to Iran, how much capacity Iran had, and how much waste was actually done during the war. They just spent a lot of very vital US Critical assets to delay and temporarily suppress. Iranian missile fire did not destroy it because it's deep underground where it really cannot be neutralized from the air.

Ryan Grim

Yeah, there's a lot of American arrogance at play here, not recognizing Iran as a significant industrial power and Iran is a significant scientific and technological power as well. And that is certainly coming back to bite us now. Murtaza, great to see you. Thank you so much.

Sagar Enjeti

Thanks man.

Murtaza Hussein

It was good to see you.

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Sagar Enjeti

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Ryan Grim

So let's dig in deeper now to the global market and oil specific perspective. We brought the news earlier that the Houthis have announced a blockade of Saudi Arabia. John Mearsheimer is just speaking to Chris Hedges about how significant it would be if this action were taken to the global markets. He in fact predicted just days ago that the Iranians would be very interested in moving this direction. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.

Krystal Ball

There were about 20 million barrels per day coming out of the Gulf on February 22nd. You know, when people talk about 20% of the world's oil came out of the Gulf, that 20% represents about 20 million barrels. And since the war started, we've devolved to a situation where 7 million barrels are still coming out of Saudi Arabia and the UAE combined. So it's only in my opinion about 13 million barrels that have have been bottled up in the Gulf. Now where are those 7 million barrels coming out of? One is that Saudi Arabia is sending probably somewhere on the order of 5 million barrels out through the Red Sea, not through the Strait of Hormuz. And I would guess that the UAE is sending out close to 2 million barrels barrels from Fujairah, which is a UAE port on the Gulf of Oman. In other words, it's outside of the Strait of Hormuz. So you have this roughly 7 million barrels of oil, 7 million out of the original 20 million that are still coming out of the Persian Gulf. I think the Iranians have a vested interest in shutting down the flow of oil, oil through the Red Sea, that's the Saudi Arabian oil and shutting down Fujairah. And there's some evidence they've already shut down Fujairah.

Ryan Grim

So Sagar, we've been talking about why there hasn't been a complete disaster in the oil market. I mean, prices are already pretty high. They're back up over $4 a gallon for American consumers today. But one of the reasons why there's been a bit of a cushion is because, because Saudi has been able to export some through the Red Sea. That plus China has reduced their imports significantly. We'll talk more about that in a moment. But if that piece is going away, that could be highly significant, especially as we're sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel here in terms of our strategic petroleum reserve.

Sagar Enjeti

Yeah, let's just like lay out the picture. There's like two main reasons why gas is still not at catastrophic levels. Although let's put C1 up here on the screen. I mean, as of this morning, gases right back to $4 a gallon nationally. So it's not like, you know, people got a little bit of a reprieve around. Like, I think the lowest we saw was like 380, maybe 390.

Ryan Grim

Wonder how the Freedom Fuel Network is doing this morning.

Sagar Enjeti

Yeah, we should check in. We should check in on the Freedom Fuel Network. But we have $4 a gallon here nationally, and that's where things are now when things have been cooled off. So there are two primary reasons that things did not go absolutely catastrophic. One was Saudi Arabia, as you just said, Approximately 4.5 million barrels per day that were coming out of the Bab El Mandev Strait that they were able to export. That's roughly 3 to 4% of the world's oil supply, which the Houthis now say they will blockade. And I do think it's worth meditating on this. Like, why should we even take it seriously? Immediately I was looking here for the reaction. I was like, wow, this is a literal nightmare scenario. Of course, there's a lot of people, they're like, well, that would only assume that they have the ability to do so. And I'm like, they do have the ability to do so. They do. They literally did this years ago. We bombed that living hell out of them. And we still were not able to stop the blockade. We both Biden and Trump expended a serious amount of munitions. And you know how the Houthis responded? They were able to do so. And they even clipped an F35. Let's not forget about that. So these are not just some guys, you know, with RPGs in a cave. Like, this is some seriously capable guerrilla force.

Ryan Grim

It also doesn't take that much because you're relying on commercial shippers. I mean, you've had sailors on these cargo ships who have been killed.

Sagar Enjeti

Yeah, many.

Ryan Grim

And then you have the insurance companies that are also saying, no, we're not going to insure your cargo ship going through this active war zone where a blockade has been imposed. So you kind of have, you know, capitalism working against you here as well. They're just not going to be willing to take the risk. And I, who could blame them? I mean, if you're, you're a sailor, one of these, like, working class men from around the world who are staffing these ships, you want to risk your life to run the blockade? I don't think so. Not at all. And You've had captains who have actively been their companies that hey, you're going to take this route. And they've said, no, I'm, I'm not doing that. So we will see some of that as well.

Sagar Enjeti

Exactly. And then secondary is China. And this is one of the main focuses that we want to show everyone. Let's put C2 up here, for example. Chinese imports are beginning to rebound sharply. So why does this matter? As you guys could see from this chart, if you're watching, it's is that China was importing roughly 12 million barrels per day right before the beginning of the war. That plummeted below 6 million barrels per day after the outbreak of the war. Nobody really knows why. The general theory is that when oil was cheap, they stocked up. They have a massive strategic petroleum reserve. But one of the things that we kept hammering home here is eventually they will have to buy some oil. They may not resist the full 12 million barrel per day purchase that they were at. But a resumption in their price because of their sheer size for a massive oil importing nation means it will put significant, significant pressure on the global oil market. Oil is a global commodity, at least for now, before things get totally catastrophic and you have to start doing crazy stuff. Well, with the Chinese imports, let's put C3 back there on the screen. It is the single most determinative fact factor whenever it comes to the global oil market. And so if you have two primary shocks that are already coming into a shocked system, and what I mean by that is the five month closure of the Strait of Hormuz or at least disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, then you have the Red Sea and then you have China. That is primarily why oil is not at $200 per barrel. But if it resumes buying, if China buys oil again with government gusto, and this is when prices were in the $60 range he predicted. This is Javier Blas, who's the chief energy commodities analyst over at Bloomberg. He said it would push the price to $80 a barrel. So $20 a barrel rise, just a resumption of oil. So just to give an amount, you know, give a picture, we are currently around 90 as of this morning. Things are fluctuating obviously because of the Houthis announcement, because of the response assumption of war or at least seeming like there's no Memorandum of understanding and of course a reduction in what's happening. 90 is where put things gas right around $4. But if you go to 1101-201301-40150 things can get catastrophic very quickly. And then finally, really why we should pay attention is. And I said, guys, I sent this this morning, I'm not sure which element it is, is that what we have currently is an incredibly low, low stockpile, which I know we've talked about from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But secondary to that is not just the petroleum reserve, it's crude oil inventories of what's left in the United States, the slack in the system. So if you take a look at this picture, you can actually see crude oil only has about 43 days of supply left in the United States. That is the lowest inventory in the 45 years of history of taking all of the, of taking inventory inventories. That lack of slack is exactly why Trump buckled in the first place. Remember he said, I don't want to be Herbert Hoover. That was higher than where we are today. So 43 days left of supply. Again, I'm not an oil commodities guy. I've tried to learn as much as I can over the last several months. The reason I understand it is that obviously there's a fluctuation in how you produce oil. It's not exactly like a one to one basis business. So you need that slack to have like confidence in the market, that it'll be there when you order what you have. When all that gets taken away and if it runs to zero, that's when stuff gets absolutely bonkers. That means just like, you know, for delivery time, you know, just in time, delivery, etc. It would be basically no confidence in the market. That's when export bans and all this other things might come into play. Literal shortages, people just running out of stuff. And maybe this is all, you know, hyperbolic. I can understand why someone would say, say that after the five months of us talking about it. But I mean at a certain point it's like this is the reason the Strategic Petroleum Reserve existed in the first place. And to now be at the lowest level since 1983. You just have no Runway. And so I mean, we'll see. That's really the only thing. Cuz you can't look at the current situation and say, yeah, Trump is going to blame. He definitely could at any moment like he did last time. I still think he probably has to just because of the logic of where we are. But you got four Americans now who were killed just in the last 48 hours, 72 hours, something like that. You have no, you have low inventory. I mean, what if they do a ground invasion? It's possible and if they do that, it's over. There is no coming back from a ground invasion of any kind. You can't just withdraw them and then we take more casualties. So if we don't Taco at least some point in the next two, three weeks, that's where we're going.

Ryan Grim

Well, and here's the other piece we haven't even mentioned, which is Ukraine is hitting Russian oil infrastructure as hard as they possibly can to try to, you know, create pain for the Russians. But inherently, that's going to create more pain for the global economy because these markets are all completely intertwined. So, again, Javier Blas says chart of the day. Morgan Stanley reckons more than half of Russian oil refinery capacity is down due to Ukrainian attacks. Typically, Russia is the world's second largest, largest diesel exporter, normally around 11% of global seaborne trade. And so just when we say it's a global commodity, what we mean is, even if you have a country that is not directly buying oil from Russia, the fact that Russia is producing and exporting oil is creating less pressure in the market in keeping prices more in check because it's being bought by somebody. So when you have also these Ukrainian and attacks paired together with, it looks like China's increasing their buying paired together with, now we've got a full blockade in the Strait of Horbuz. Now we've got Yemen saying, hey, we're gonna blockade Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, this is all looking very grim now. I don't think there's anyone in the world who could say this is the moment when the shit hits the fan, right? But I keep coming back to what Trump said when he did Taco, when he said, we've got a few weeks left, he has access to presumably the best information in the world. So if you're thinking to yourself that there's some other rabbit that he's gonna be able to pull out of a hat to lessen the pressure in the oil market and forestall what we know eventually at some point is going to happen, that would be an indication to you that he does not have another rabbit in the hat that he can pull out, that all of the things that could be done to keep prices as low as possible, which ain't that low to begin with, but as low as possible without things going to 200. That has all already been done. All of those levers have already been pulled. So, you know, we know certainly the clock is ticking. And when you go back to the Iranian strategy, this is what, when they decided to move forward with negotiations and sign the mou. This was the logic that they put forward, Sager, that they thought even if, you know, we have some pressure release now, as long as the clock is ticking, we are getting closer to the time and pressure is building, building to the time when there will be massive global economic fallout. And I think if we look at that, if we look at the fact that they were able to, you know, they were able to sell a bunch of oil, refresh their coffers in terms of their finances, they were able to dig out a bunch of their missile cities and be able to prepare for the next escalatory attack. We were not able to do the same. You know, we didn't spin up manufacturing, we didn't, they didn't refurb the bases that had been destroyed throughout the region. They come into this new phase of the conflict actually relative to the US much stronger than they started the war between all of those pieces. So that's the landscape that's facing all of us right now.

Sagar Enjeti

I'm just looking even at the more recent strike information. So Kuwait is getting hammered. In the last three days they've had huge oil hits. Water desalination and energy. There's pictures of, of backup generators that are all being driven around in like when you start to see the government bring out the backup generator. Not where I want to be, on the back of an 18 wheeler truck. Well, this country exported zero oil for 30 days. That's 3% of the total supply of the world, 5.6% of the entire global oil reserve, Much of which the production had to be taken offline because they literally couldn't export anything. And now they're getting completely hammered and struck in terms of their infrastructure where even if the war ended, now they have to rebuild it. They have to do all this stuff to get it out there. That's just Kuwait. And then we talked about Saudi Arabia. That's another 4 to 5% of the world's oil. Will it be blockaded? We'll see.

Murtaza Hussein

Right?

Sagar Enjeti

Obviously we'll cover it here for a couple of days. The Strait of Hormuz is basically closed. Yesterday, literally just yesterday, another tanker is on or, sorry, overnight. So while we were all sleeping, a tanker agreed. Ship got hit. Apparently there's like one Greek company which continues to try to run the blockade. Everybody else is like, yeah, we're good. Right. And so you have a trickle of the number of ships that are coming through. You've got ships that are being struck, you got oil infrastructure, water desalination, and then Iran Has a nuclear power plant hit. I mean, how can you not look at all this and say we are on the precipice, right to the Trump and Hoover point, whenever he was talking about the slack. I mean, this is one at least benefit to the world oil inventory and petroleum reserve. And all that is heavily documented. You can go as we have preparing for the show, just go to the International Energy Agency's website. They will show you what the Strategic Petroleum Reserve of all the participating nations is, how much they've released and how much is left. We have a few weeks left for what that initial Strategic Petroleum Reserve release is. There's basically no more oil left left in it for the critical operating levels. So there's nothing left between crude oil inventory and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We know exactly where it will all come from. You can dial things up maybe in the US But a part of the problem too for Saudi Arabia, the closure and for now, the stoppage of Strait of Hormuz oil is that means that this inventory will go faster. Because the Trump administration brags a lot about how we export all this oil. We have been exporting a absolute shitpower pot of oil. But that has got to. That is going to be made up for in terms of orders from Japan, from Korea, from all of these other nations around the world, all competing for our oil. And then you add Russia on top of that for all this diesel and then natural gas. In terms of Qatar and their inability to get. So like all of the, you know, the ground is set for a genuine crisis. I mean, we're already living in a crisis, but even more of a crisis, in my opinion. And I think especially this is just, and I try to emphasize this in our shows, but it is genuinely important. A black swan event like a hurricane will break us or not just us. Somewhere around the world, who knows, some nation, tsunami, tornado, whatever they call it cyclone or something, it's over. Because if you take something like that off, then the slack for Japan, for Korea, for any of these other countries, that's when you're broken. You have nothing left to shoot ship you, right? All of the naval assets are in the Gulf. We didn't even bring this up in the A block in terms of a potential crisis. A bunch of warplanes from Germany and from rest of the world, they're going to the Middle east, which means if some stuff kicks off in Ukraine and Russia, we got nothing there. It's gone. Same with all the carrier strike groups. And all the munitions have all been basically stripped from paycom or From Korea, from all these Air Force bases. There is nothing that is currently there that is not nailed to the ground. And so that just means like, you know, everyone thinks things will kick off with just because of Iran. It definitely might, you know, is what we're saying. But I actually think there will be some Katrina style event, not maybe either here in the United States or somewhere else in the world or potentially some sort of, you know, Taiwan situation. Nobody knows North Korea, it could be anything. And that is what actually will break the entire, because that's when, when you have nothing left, that's when the whole world will change.

Ryan Grim

We are redlining the global economy right now. We are pushing it to its absolute limits. We are taking out any sort of slack or buffer so that if, you know, if, I mean if we just continue in this direction, it's unsustainable. But if we have some sort of a catastrophic weather event or other event that is unforeseen, although the weather events are kind of foreseen because we are in this massive El Nino scenario cycle. But in any case, something that is unforeseen, then we will be in a world of trouble. Last one, I'll put up on the screen. C6 Brent crude crossing $90 a barrel. It has now gone down to like, it's at like 89 this morning. 88. And this is the thing that I'm like, it makes no sense to me, right? I mean I'm looking at all of these numbers. They're living apparently off of the Hopium of this like, oh, there's some 10 day negotiation that's going on and so the stock market is up and the oil prices have ticked back down a little bit. I don't know, I hope their Hopium is justified but they seem to ignore every other indicator. If there's even one thing that's slightly positive, they'll be like, I think this is going to work out. And I guess they're in part betting on that all the other traders and all of the other players will also seize on that Hopium and act accordingly. But at some point with oil, there is a reality here of what exists and what doesn't happen exist and what is getting into the global economy and what is not. So there has to be a reckoning at some point. It's not like, you know, SpaceX where you can just have the theory of the possibility indefinitely. Although SpaceX is not doing all that well either.

Sagar Enjeti

Right, but, and even if we do get out of this, we're just all going to be paying 350 a gallon for forever at this point for the rest of Trump's presidency. So it's not going down significantly anytime soon. Actually, we even saw with the memorandum of under understanding, how low did it get? 380, right? I mean, that's a preview of what it's going to be like for a long, long time.

Krystal Ball

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