Postmortem on the Iran-Israel War

Episode Transcript
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Jacob Shapiro (00:50):
All right, uh, the cousins together.
Uh, Marco is joining usoff of a big client call.
I have a big client call in 50minutes, so we don't get to luxuriate
in our normal hour and a half.
We gotta, we gotta give the peoplewhat they want in 50 minutes
here, Marco, or let's call it 55.
Um, we wanted to do a postmortemon the Iran Israel War.
Uh, we wanted to talk about how, Imean, the news cycle's already onto

(01:11):
the next thing, the crazy thingshappening at the NATO summit, which
there's actually a lot to unpack there.
Everything from how the Europeans aretreating Donald Trump, uh, versus Japan
and South Korea, and some of the thingshappening on the sidelines, or some of
the things not happening on the sidelines.
Um, where, where do you wanna start?
What do you wanna say first?
And I, and I'm wearing a tie'cause I was just on with our
friend Emray for his CNBC program.

(01:33):
I know you did it, uh, for them.
Uh, what, earlier this week orlast week Time has no meaning
anymore, so that's why I look nice.

Marko Papic (01:40):
Um, yeah, so I, I think, uh, you know, we
keep delaying our trade value.
I'm, I'm very disappointed about this.
We we're, we're so excited to dotop 30 political leaders to draft
board, uh, but we're gonna haveto delay it a little bit more.
Uh, obviously I think, uh, weshould dedicate this, uh, to the

(02:01):
postmortem of what just happened.
So, uh, where I would wanna start withfirst is there's this, uh, big debate
and I find this fascinating, Jacob.
Um, there's the big debate whether ornot the nuclear program was obliterated,
you know, and, um, president Trumpobviously claimed total obliteration.

(02:21):
And then, uh, there was a leaked,there was a leaked report from
the Defense Intelligence Agency,which by the way, I mean.
That's, I think, a story in of itself.
Why is the intelligence communityleaking a report that's top secret
on their assessment, uh, otherthan to embarrass the president?

Well, or probably for the same reason that there was a decoy group
of bombers that went towards the Pacific.
And yes, I'm sure that some ofit is to embarrass the president.
Some of it is also probably, uh,we don't know who is in Pete Hegg,
Seth's, uh, WhatsApp groups right now.
So, I mean, very real, like non-zerochance you could be getting, you
know, information somewhere, you know?

Yeah.
Fair, fair.
Um, so, so look, I mean, butI think it's a fascinating
point because this idea that.
Um, the Iran nuclear program wasset back by mere months, I think
is like just patently ludicrous.
That is like objectively just impossible.
And, uh, I find it hilarious thatsome democratic members of Congress

(03:23):
are latching onto this because theirTrump derangement syndrome is so severe
that they're actually now becoming.
Like war Monering neocons in orderto embarrass President Trump.
So you've got this guy in Californiawho I don't even know what his name
is, he's completely irrelevant.
He's from LA area of Ventura County.
You can look him up.
But he came out and said like,you see, we didn't do enough.

(03:45):
It's like, okay, so are you callingfor like greater war with Iran?
It's like, you know,where, where are we headed?
Look where I wanna, where Iwanna go with this is, is this.
Seeing that the attack on the nuclearprogram did not a hundred percent
destroy the nuclear program is likeseeing that the COVID vaccine is
not a hundred percent effective.

(04:08):
It's like, yes, that's a fact.
COVID vaccine is not ahundred percent effective.
Like you can still get COVID, youcan even still die, but you should
still probably take the vaccine.
And so the reason I say this is becauseit's very similar to how like for
example, the Joe Biden administration.
Was kind of suggesting that the vaccinereally is super effective and so was Trump

(04:30):
in a way because policymakers are justsaying like, look, this crisis is over.
This is the solution we got.
It's the best one we have justshut up and take the vaccine.
Similarly, right now, I can objectivelytell you from everything I know about
geopolitics, military affairs and likehow science works is you cannot a hundred
percent obliterate in nuclear program.

(04:51):
When Israel did it in 1981 bybombing Alli, Iraq in Iraq, did it
obliterate the Iraqi nuclear program?
Well, George W. Bush would say otherwise.

I mean, they did both in Iraq and Syria, but that was because
they were at a much, much, much,much earlier stage of the process.
There was like one,

but they didn't, well, they

never found evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq.
That was, they didn't find nuclear

weapons.
But there was a nuclear program,and the reason for this is that a
nuclear program is not a building.
A nuclear program is a holisticcombination of factors including human
capital, fixed capital, some tools,some toolboxes, and so saying that
the underground chambers of fordoare still intact, it's like number

(05:36):
one, there's no electricity to place.
It's probably gonna take them months,if not years, to get back into
those chambers, and if they movethe uranium out of the chambers.
This is the part that I justthink is so unfair to Trump.
They move the uranium because you warnthem, the Israeli intelligence knows
where the ayatollah goes to the bathroom.

(06:01):
If they move the uranium, the enricheduranium out of the underground
caverns of photo, it suggests tome that they're now out in the
open and we know where they are.
Like, you know, like, relax everyone.
So yes, it's objectively correct to saythat President Trump was being hyperbolic.
That's like accusing, you know,accusing Trump of being hyperbolic

(06:23):
is like accusing him of being orange.
This is just how he is.
The reality is that it's destroyedenough and that's a fact.
It is destroyed enough.

Yeah, I, uh, I, I'm, I'm interested in why you're
focused on this point, because totalobliteration to me, uh, is the exact
same thing as mission accomplished.
Any president who pulls off a militaryoperation is going to have to take
a victory lap, no matter, like,the job is not to be accurate about
what they did, it's to say somethinghappened and it was successful.
I think you're right.
You know, the Democrats just can'tfind their way out of a wet paper bag.

(06:57):
They had one sharp tool.
That they were starting to use it wasthat, um, congressional measure on halting
US involvement based on war powers.
And they got a Republican from Kentuckyto sign on and sponsor the bill, but he
decided since Trump like stopped bombingalready, that he didn't want to do it.
And so the speaker's notgonna bring it to the floor.
And the Republican, uh, from Kentucky,Thomas Massey, his name is not

(07:20):
gonna push it forward if, if theDemocrats really wanna like play here.
The, you're exactly right.
The wrong thing to do is tosay, ah, nothing happened.
The right thing to do is to say, Hey.
This started with the Democratswith Truman in the Korean War.
Like we are the original sin of it.
We have to get Congress back in charge ofwhen US military force is deployed because
whether it's President Trump or PresidentObama or President Bush or President

(07:43):
Truman, like we opened up Pandora's Boxand Republicans, you need to work with us.
To shut Pandora's Box be, and that'sSteve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, all of you.
We want all of like, yeah, that'sfree advice there to the Democrats.
That's if you want an issue toplay on, it's not gonna happen
overnight, but like that is the issue.
Yeah.
So this is, uh, you should be banging

on.
So Jacob, that's, that's a great point.
Like, if you want something that'santi-Trump and that's bipartisan, go
join up with a Mago camp that didn'twant the attack in the first place.
That didn't want to be Israel's tail.
That got wagged by Benjamin Netanyahu's.
Right dog.
That's what, like if you have aproblem with this, there's, it's,

(08:20):
but it seems like the Democratsjust can't quit the NeoCon line.
This is like Kamala Harris campaigningwith Liz Cheney, which is hilarious to me.
Like they just don't understandthe country has moved on from this.
So the media, and by the way, I gotjournalists tweeting at me like,
well, Trump started it by claimingthat it was total obliteration.
Oh yeah.
That's, that's why you are leakingdefense intelligent, uh, agency, uh,

(08:45):
reports that, you know, that's why.
That's why because of semantics.
No, you are just so deranged with theTrump derangement syndrome that you're
willing to basically take the stancethat he didn't do enough, and therefore
we need to go into an endless warfarewith Iran over something that clearly has
been set back by years, if not decades.

(09:06):
So,

yeah.
But would you say.
Do you think that it was necessaryfor the US to bomb Fordo and
those other sites to set it back?
Because I, I think Israel hadalready set it back meaningfully.
I'm not, I'm not sure what elsethe United States did, and so then
like, I want to agree with you anddisagree with you at the same time
because I think there's a problem.
With the media and that there is Trumpderangement syndrome, but there's
another part here, which is what theTrump administration was pushing.

(09:30):
And I'm not saying this pejoratively,it's just an objective fact in multiple
administrations of both stripes do this.
Whenever they do a militaryoperation, they just do it in a
different style to suit their base.
It's propaganda.
The whole thing of total oblobliteration was propaganda.
And it is a journalist jobto question propaganda and
to try and interrogate truth.
And so if the justification for bombingthe Iranian nuclear sites was we're

(09:53):
going to obliterate the Iranian nuclearprogram, and then you get the Iranian,
uh, you get the propaganda, it isa journalist function to push back
against the, the propaganda itself.
Um, and I think that's where Trumpgets into trouble because they
made it about the nuclear deal.
When I. Think what really happened, andwe talked about this, was Israel struck
Iran, uh, Trump and Fareed Zakaria'spoint of view, had that fomo, foreign

(10:15):
policy, wanted to look tough, didn'twanna slap the Israelis down in public.
And so he created thisthing and went forward.
And so I think you're rightthat the media's focusing.
On the wrong thing in that sense.
But I do think there was a journalisticfunction to say, okay, we get it.
Like total obliteration.
But that wasn't even thepoint in the first place.
Whoa, there's this relationshipwith Israel going back and forward.
And there was that one reporter whogot Trump to say, I dunno if you saw

(10:38):
this, uh uh, I'm sure you saw this.
I mean, this was incredible.
Where he basically, you know, theyasked him if he was mad at the
Israelis for violating the ceasefire,and he said, these two countries
have been fighting for so long.
They don't know whatthe fuck they're doing.
Yeah, exactly.
And I, and I honestly wantedto stop it right there and
be like, let Trump be Trump.
Get rid of all the advisors.
Like that's the best foreign policy.
Brief agree on Israel, Iran relations.

(10:59):
I've heard in years, theydon't know what they're doing.
Like, just like, stop guys, listen.
I, like I, and I think all this otherstuff around him gets in the way of it.

Right.
But that's where the criticismof the semantics is idiotic.
So, no.
Mm-hmm.
I think if you're a journalist attackingthe total obliteration, you're not, I
mean, yeah, sure, you're doing your joblike, but I still think you're an idiot.
And here's why.
Because well be, because who, who cares?
Like he didn't like Yes.
Was, was it necessary to drop.

(11:28):
This massive ordinance in Fordo.
I mean on some say yeah.
Objectively.
Why not?
Why not also do that on Passantsince Israel already started it.
But the real reason that thatwas done is so that the US gets
leverage over both Israel and Iran.
So, and that's, and that'ssomething he can't publicly say.

Right?
And that, and it's the job of thejournalist to try and get that, and
if not unearth that from him to Right.
But they're not doing that else.

But they're not doing that.
No,

I agree.
That's why I said agree and disagree.
Like I don't want to throw outthe function of journalists while
also criticizing like how thejournalists are doing things.
And it also like in that very narrowsense like you and I are trying to
do what journalists should be doing.
Yeah.
Like instead of like some part of ourjob, instead of analyzing what's going
on, we also know have to be truth seekers.
It used to be you could rely onjournalists to a certain degree to

(12:15):
try and ascertain truth, and then youcould take a step back and do analysis.
But our job has gotten infinitelyharder because you can't even trust
the truth function that the journalismis sending out because it's, you know,
depending on who the reporter is orwhat outlet they're with, they have
all these other different things.
I also wanna push back against one.
Okay.
No, go, go ahead.
No, I'll push back on

something.
No, no, no.
Finish.
Finish.
There.

Just the uranium thing.
I don't think that's, that's, um, Idon't think it's quite that simple.
Like uranium doesn't breathe,it doesn't make phone calls.
These cylinders can be stored in,uh, my understanding is that they
can be stored in things that arebasically, you know, 55 pounds roughly.
So something that you couldtheoretically get out and like send
it in a bunch of different directions.

(12:55):
Um, and if we don'tknow where it is or if.
If it has been moved all over theplace, then you're absolutely right.
Not only is does the Iraniannuclear program still live, it
can be given to other groups.
It can be given to terrorists.
Like where, where is it gonna end up?
Especially if we have regimechange in Iran that is coming.
We'll get to that in a second.
Like the question of wherethe uranium is, is one that.

(13:15):
Is a little bit disturbing to me, and I'mnot sure that it's quite as easy to track
down a 55 pound, you know, uh, canister ofstuff, especially when you're tracking, I
don't know how many of them, is it like 16of them or something like that, enough for
10 nuclear bombs rather than just tracking180 6-year-old dude who probably can't
be too far away from the bathroom fortoo long without something bad happening.

I, I, I, I would push back massively on that look.
I mean, Israel has destroyed radarinstallations that also don't breathe.
They've destroyed, um, you know, uh, they,they've known the movements of all the
different, um, you know, uh, scientists.
I mean, it's just, it's justthe reason Fordo is important is
because 80 meters underground,you can store something in it.

(13:59):
Once you have to pull that out of that,that's where it's out in the open.
Do we know where the 50pound pound, you know, bag of
enriched uranium is right now?
Do we know like, no, but we will find out.
Because one thing we know for acertain is that this country leaks
like a sieve, like the Iranian navy,sorry, the Iranian government leaks

(14:21):
like, like, like their navy does.
So I'm just not too concerned aboutthat because it's a, it's a, it's, it's
this idea that it's now disappeared.
Well, evils in fordo for areason, it was protected there.
Now it's out in the open.
Yes.
There's, there's aelement of mystery of it.
I am personally comfortablewith that level of mystery.
And what Trump is basicallysaying by using hyperbole is

(14:46):
that he just doesn't want to hearany more arguments about this.
And he really is not talkingto American audience.
He's talking to Israel.
He's saying like, listen, stop usingyour sources in American media to
leak government, government, uh, like.
Reports so that you can build acase for an endless war that we are

(15:09):
supposed to wage on your behalf.
That is what's being said, I think withPresident Trump, and I find it interesting
that nobody's picking up on that.
There's this like a phony of voices that'ssaying like, well, no, we need to do more.
The same, the same voices in somecases, particularly on the journalist
side, who two weeks ago were sayingthe US should not get involved.
And I think that that's, that'swhat's interesting to me.

(15:31):
This flip-flopping on, onhow to make Trump look bad.
Yes, you're right.
That statement in front of theWhite House is he was boarding the
plane sink to both sides, like theydidn't know what they're doing.
I think that that was a clearsignal, you know, and he actually
went after Israel really hard.
So the reason he bombed Fordo, the reasonthe United States bombed Fordo is to tell
Israel like, okay, you know, we did it.

(15:54):
That's it.
And we're not gonna, you,you got us into this.
Well done Chapo, like well done.
But now, now it's game over.
And in particular, I thinkthat this is something that we
discussed on the podcast as well.
The longer this conflict went on,the leverage us has over, uh, Israel
increases due to the munitions.

(16:16):
Uh, I focused on the offensive munitions,uh, wall Street Journal did a great job.
There you go.
I, I can also give props to journalists.
They did a great job about 10days ago where they focused on the
stockpile of defensive munitions,particularly the aero missiles
that intercept ballistic missiles.
And so yeah, Israel is running outand so now President Trump's leverage

(16:37):
is increasing and he's effectivelytelling Israel like, okay, that's it.
That's why US bond four though,not necessarily because there's
a hundred percent effectiveness,but I would again argue that's.
That's also a bar.
That's, that's just way too high.
How are you gonna kill everysingle human being in Iran who
like, has taken a physics course?
You know, like, yeah.

Well, and I, I think that's a pretty high price to pay for what
the United States accomplished in Iran.
So maybe we, we, I. Put a pin in onthis, like, um, maybe I give you my
scenarios going forward and you gimmescenarios and then we can turn to nato.
'cause in some ways, I mean, that'slike the new thing and in some ways
more important I think globallyand especially for our listeners.
But I've got three scenarios lefton my, on my sheet right now, and

(17:17):
they're all about Iranian domesticpolitics and how Iran responds to
what, what just happened to it.
I think the most likely IST status quo.
Um, that the regime survives.
Like it showed impressiveresilience considering
everything that happened to it.
Uh, the mark of a, of a strongregime is actually one that's able
to take a punch and then counterpunch, and that's what they did.
They took a really, really hard punchfrom the Israelis and then they refocused

(17:38):
and they reorganized, and then theystarted hitting Israel and making it hurt.
So that shows me that there'ssome resilience there that maybe
was unappreciated interesting.
I think there's also a. A scenariowhere we go full North Korea.
The, the Russians didn't help us, theChinese didn't help us, nobody helped us.
We're just gonna lock it up full onauthoritarianism, nuclear weapons as
quickly as possible, like we are thehermit kingdom of the Middle East.

(18:00):
Or there's the NeoCon wet dream,which is the people rise up.
Liberalizing regime.
Sure, this will be an ally of theUnited States going forward, but I,
the reason I say it's a high costto bomb four oh to get the Israelis
to stop, and they didn't even stop.
I don't think the Israelisthink that they need to stop.
If anything, I think they are convincedthat they could do whatever they want.
Now once, okay, let's restock themunitions, then we can do this again in 12

(18:21):
months because we found the yellow cake.
It moved from four oh to this othersite, so we're gonna hit it again.
I can hear it going already, but inall of my scenarios, Iran sprints
to a nuclear weapon quicker.
I think that was the cost of this.
You've basically just given any futureIranian regime, even one that is liberal
and friendly to women and homosexuals,like they will also still want a nuclear
weapon because the United States, unlikein Russia, Ukraine, unlike in India,

(18:44):
Pakistan, unlike in any of the otherconflicts of, of the past couple of
years, like this was direct US involvementand a different conversation has to be
had in foreign capitals and in analystcircles in those different cities.
When you're talking about.
Threat of the United Statesand what the risks are and
how to sort of deal with them.
So what, what's your takeaway?

Yeah, I think broadly, I agree with everything.
What I'm, what I'm fascinated byis how this regime is just really
non monolithic and hasn't been.
Um, you know, in 1980 to 1988, I keepgoing back to the Irani Rock War.
Half a million people died.
Everyone's on Saddam's side.
I mean, everybody, Soviet Union andAmerica are aligned together against Iran.

(19:26):
How does Iran respond after 1988?
Do they triple down on isolation?
Well, actually no.
They, they take their licks, youknow, I. Men gendering, sorry.
But they take their legs and they,um, proceed with actually a period of
opening to the rest of the world in the1990s, which is weird because they did

(19:48):
also support terrorism at the same time.
So you have the Buenos Aires attack,um, as an example, which clearly
was, um, linked to Iranian regimeand Hezbollah, but the presidency
of r Sanja was quite moderate.
In the nineties, and it led to someopening with the rest of the world.
So, you know, I wouldn't be surprisedif your first scenario where the regime

(20:11):
survives, which is your base case, alsoincludes a domestic internal pivot.
I mean, look, if you are a member of theIranian Elite right now, first of all,
you got completely punched in the face.
Second of all, you'relooking around the region.
What are other countries doing?
They're, they're takingaccount of their demographics.

(20:32):
Like Saudi Arabia woke up one dayand was like, look, I mean 70%
of the countries under the age of35, like, what are we doing here?
And so I could see a similar sortof, not North Korea scenario,
but rather the opposite.
Taking a page out of the 1990swhere President r and Johnny was
actually quite, you know, likenot liberal, but quite reformist.

(20:54):
I mean, he actually ended up award the2009 in opposition, uh, which cost him
off obviously his political career.

You know?
Yeah.
And, and it's a really importantpoint because another historical
analogy and all historicalanalogies are fraught and imperfect.
But I think what happened to Egypt overthe second half of the 20th century
is actually, um, somewhat explanatory.
You can explain the opening in the1990s because of the unique nature
of the Islamic, uh, of, of theIranian revolution, which was they
set up parallel political structures.

(21:24):
There was the clericsprotected by the IRGC.
The job of the IRGC is literallyto protect the revolution.
Now they've, they've expandedinto Hezbollah and everything
else, but their original purposewas protect the revolution.
And then you had, you, you still havequote unquote, democratic elections in
Iran and you have, you know, civilianpolitics and they are not the same thing.
Yes.

(21:44):
And the IRGC was always supposedto be separate from that.
And what happened beginning withPresident Ahmadinejad was that the IRGC.
Started metastasizing into all theseother arenas of the Iranian state and
economy that they weren't supposed to.
They were supposed to stay in theirbox and protect the clerics and
protect the virtue of the revolution.
Then they slowly started swallowing,um, you know, businesses, the economy.

(22:07):
Uh, even like the external, uh,military functions that were supposed
to be with the Iranian military, andyou get to the point where the IRGC
controls like something to 50 to60% of the Iranian economy by most
eth uh, by most estimates right now.
So no matter what happens, unless youkill all the IRGC, which is not possible.
The IRGC is gonna be there.
And I make the analogy to Egypt becausethink of what, what started in Egypt with

(22:29):
Gamal Abdel Nasser, a coup, a charismaticpolitician who gives this Arab nationalism
and socialism, and he dominates for, youknow, 10, 15, 20 years, whatever it was.
But when he dies, and you know,eventually Sadad is assassinated
because he makes peace with Israel.
It's the Egyptianmilitary that takes over.
Now, Nasser was a military offer.
Officer himself.
But when you look at Egypt today,it's a military dictatorship and

(22:50):
one that is relatively stable, butthe military is calling the shots.
I think that's maybe the model here.
If you're the IRGC, it's like we'vealready taken over the economy.
Thanks, aog.
Now we've got all these other things,the supreme leader's about to die.
We'll put in a figurehead.
We are gonna dominate, and once weno longer have to watch our backs and
we're completely in control of this,we can behave like Egypt does today.
We can go out and deal withthe world in general like that.

(23:13):
That I think is a path forward for them.

That's the irony, Jacob, because General Soleimani,
who was assassinated by the USwas on his way to doing that.
I mean, there were rumors hewas going to run for presidency.
He was extremely popularjust in Iran in general.
Charismatic guy, very successful in theuh, insurgency against the US and Iraq.
Um, and so then he was assassinated andIRGC kinda lost that face, but you're

(23:39):
right, uh, there are many others.
Uh, there was a mayor ofTehran, I forgot his name, who
was also IRGC, uh, commander.
In the past life, there are.
There are models of thisthat can, that can definitely
emerge as quickly, it doesn't

matter who it is, it's an institutional dictatorship.
Yeah.
Rather than this weird bifurcatedhalf democratic half theocratic thing.
So I, I'm sure, I think, I think theIranian revolution dies with Ale Khomeini
and it becomes a, like a militarydictatorship, just like any other
military dictatorship in the world.
If it's the status quo, you know,of course there, there's that NeoCon
wet dream lurking in the background.
But that was always a hail Mary.

And I think their military dictatorship, uh, will be very rational.
But to your point, military dictatorshipwill obviously want to pursue a nuclear
weapon given what just happened.
And so I do think that the negotiationsare going to be very interesting.
You know, the United States ofAmerica has to now really think
about what it can give Iran.

(24:33):
In order to avoid them becoming, goingfor the breakout because the, the thing
is, US still does have leverage andthe leverage is like, look, we just
figure out your S3 hundreds don't work.
You have no air defense capabilities.
We can mow the grass, you know, everycouple of years if we have to, every
couple of years that you get a littlebit more sophisticated on the nuclear

(24:54):
program, we'll just mow it down.
So, uh, you know, I do think there canbe a grand bargain between the two.
This goes back to my point from thelast podcast we did, and a moral
foreign policy allows the US to makethose kind of deals with rivals that
it disagrees with in terms of howthey treat the population or whatever.

(25:15):
And that's where I think it'll, it'll it,it could be a coup of grant proportions
for President Trump to really show hischops in negotiation if he can create
a grand bargain with Iran that ensuresthat whatever that regime evolves into.
It doesn't produce a nuclear weapon.

It's a bar.
I'm thinking more aboutthat point that you made.
Uh, it is a high bar and I, I've beenthinking more about that point you
made about the amoral foreign policyand actually maybe President Trump
is the right person for it, thatthat White House thing he did where
he was castigating, both of them.
Like I said, I wanted to isolate himfrom all his advisors and all the
polls and everything else and just belike, if that's your instinct, like.
That's the instinct I wouldlike start with, if I was
starting the briefing with you.

(25:54):
That's the sentence I would start with.
And then we would go tolike what your goals are.
Like really great.
So you already know it.
You don't need to listento cousins President Trump.
That's fine.
But you have to sell thatto the American people.
And the American people in his base arenot a moral, and this very, you saw this
in the Ted Cruz interview, you saw this inall of the talk around this going into it.
This is not a moral at all.
If anything, it is super moral.
It is righteous.

(26:14):
It's part of of especially in.
Well, very important part of the base of,without which Trump doesn't have anything.
So in the same way that FDR had tosell foreign policy to the American
people and wait for a moment, whichhe got something like, president Trump
is constrained by the same things.
He cannot just snap his fingers and say,I'm gonna be a moral, and then go to
the base who are just like, well, wait,we thought this was part of the soul.

(26:36):
So I'm, I'm just saying like heis subject to the same constraints
as any American president

I know, but I, I think the median voter has moved on.
So I think that President Trumpis far more in line with where the
median voter is than, and, and I thinkwho, who is President Trump's base.
Is it the sort of moralistic neoconslike Ted Cruz, or is it the MAGA
camp, or is it the MAGA camp?
You know, which is, which we've seenin some of the commentary over the

(27:04):
past several weeks where they'reseeing like, why are we in this fight?
Why are we letting Israeldraw us into their conflict?
It's, it's, it's, it's not talkingabout like, well, Israel's a democracy.
It's a friend of ours.
It's a li like, I mean, alot of things that, you know,
people may disagree with, but.
It's a democracy that's the mostliberal regime in the Middle East.
Again, caveats here, I'm justsaying what Juan might say.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that MAGA camp, I think is more in line with the
Bernie Sanders voters, and I thinkthat there is, the median voter in
the US is becoming much more alignedwith that kind of Machiavellian,
real politic foreign policy.
And we've seen President Trumpabandon parts of his base on
different issues before, andthis may be one of those as well.
So that's.

(27:49):
That's what's interesting.
But one thing, one thing by theway, I just want to, uh, before
we pivot to NATO and other things,there's two things I wanna say.
One, one of, uh, one of our listeners,uh, from last podcast criticized, uh,
one of the points I made, which is thatPresident Trump was generally speaking,
uh, doing right things in with this,with this particular conflict in mind.

(28:10):
I think that's proven correct by himgoing after both Israel and Iran.
Clearly he is.
Amoral in this, but we shouldprobably use a different term and
just say he's being real politic,realist, whatever you wanna call it.
But one of our listenerswas like, but wait a minute,
what about leaving J-C-P-O-A?
So, yes, yes, dear, dearlistener, you are correct.

(28:33):
Uh, that was, that was stupid.
I will, well, it, that,that was unnecessary.
There was just no need to leaveJ-C-P-O-A, uh, Iranian in Richmond.
Was it zero?
Yes, the, the deal would expire anyways.
There was a moment where hecould have renegotiated, uh,
there was a way to renegotiate.
I mean, there was a way to impose or solike get better terms, but leaving it

and remember that, that that was Trump won where he was
surrounded by Bolton and the coterie ofneocons who used the Iran issue, both on
the campaign trail to get him elected.
And they thought they were gonnause Trump as a useful idiot.
And in the first term he was.
I think he still caredabout different norms.
Um, and he doesn't now for better andfor worse, but he let himself be sort
of taken along the garden path thereand he made that promise to voters.

(29:18):
And if you're, if you're defendinghim, like you can also say
like, yes, there was a deal.
But after there was a deal and, andpart of the reason for the deal, by
the way, was that ISIS looked likeit was taking over the Middle East.
Like that was the background context forthe United States and Iran looking at each
other, being like, maybe we should like.
Put this to bed for a second and dealwith these crazy people and then we
can go back to what we were doing.
Yeah.

(29:38):
Fought together.
'cause like they saw the bigger threat.
Really what we need is ISIS tocome back for peace in the Middle
East, is what you're saying.

No, but, but I, I think, I think ISIS was the basis of
a lot of peace in the Middle East.
Yeah.
I mean, the reason that Saudi Arabiaand Iran have Deante is isis Iranian
linked Iraqi militant groups.
So Iraqi militants whowere supported by Iran.
Al KZ force was calling in airstrikesfrom American Warthogs outside of Baghdad

(30:09):
to arrest the invasion by al-Baghdadi.
So like I, I agree with you.
Um, there are far worse things, inother words, in the, in the region.
I. Than the Islamic Republic One.
One thing I do wannasay, mention your, well,

no, and, and just, but well hold on, just on the J-C-P-O-A
though, because the, the other thingto think about the Iran nuclear deal
is that, first of all, it was supportedby two lame duck presidents who didn't
have a lot of domestic support for it.
So Hassan Rouhani waspresident in Iran at the time.
He did not have a lot of support for it.
The IRGC was at his heels.
He was trying to push backagainst the IRGC and that
thing that I just talked about.

(30:43):
And then you had Obama who wasalso on his heels with Iran.
Also, after the JCPO is signedand after ISIS is dealt with.
Um, the, the Iranians, yes.
Like you can say that they were, um, they,they followed the letter of the, the law
on enrichment, but the deal said nothingabout missiles and they started testing
ICBMs and all sorts of missile technologyimmediately, all over the place.
And so, like, if the J-C-P-O-Awas gonna be effective, there

(31:05):
was more to a nuclear program.
Program than just the uranium.
There's also the missiles, there'salso all these other things.
So they just kept on going fullspeed ahead at the other stuff
and said, okay, like we will getto the uranium when we get to it.
Because as you've notedbefore, that's old technology.
Like they could probably get therelike yes, it's hard, but like they
have a lot of human capital there.
So if you really wanted A-J-C-P-O-A,we would need to go back to the way

(31:25):
that treaties used to be, which is.
Supported by Congress so that afuture president can't just rip it up
because he feels in a particular way.
So the, the J-C-P-O-A was really,it was a, a weak effort by two weak
presidents to try and set their countrieson a path away from what we just saw.
And because they didn'thave the requisite support.
It didn't work.
And whether it was a failure, like maybewhether they should have done it because

(31:48):
it was the best they could have done, orthey should have just accepted that it
was not realistic and done something else.
I don't know.
But I think that context is, is useful.
So like, yes, he shouldn't have pulledout of the J-C-P-O-A, he could have
built up on it, but there was no waythat the Trump won was going to do that.
And also the deal itself wasnot going to prevent the Iranian
nuclear program from going forward.
Like that critique is accurate.

That's, that's a, that's a really, uh, uh, a well-founded defense.
Look, look at how therules have have flipped.
Uh, one, okay, so one thing I wanna say,uh, your scenarios I have no comment on.
So they're, they're, they're fine.
Uh, the one thing that I think weshould think about though is I think
it's objectively clear that the Iranregime has weakened, not domestically.

(32:31):
So this isn't the point about regimechange, but if you are allied with Iran.
And there are fewer and fewer of thosearound Middle East, but if you are
allied with Iran, you are worried.
And in particular, what I'm worriedabout, and this is, this can be the last
point we, we have for the postmortem.
I'm worried about Iraq.
Yeah.
You know, Iraq has a, um,basically a balance of fire.

(32:56):
Uh, it's, it's very important to Iran.
It's their buffer against a lotof different, uh, challenges.
And currently it's beingrun by effectively.
Tehran linked Iranian, uh, militias,uh, Shia militias and Shia politicians.
Now there is different groupsof Shia politicians in Iraq.
The nationalists who areopposed to Iranian influence

(33:17):
effectively gave up in 2021.
I thought a civil war was going to happen.
And then Muta al sadder the leaderof this faction who fought against
Americans on behalf of Iran, but thenflipped and became pretty ardent.
Shia nationalist, opposingIranian influence in Iraq.
He retired at the end of 2021, early 2022.

(33:39):
He just retired.

Yeah.

And that was part of, for Yeah.
Good for him.
Uh, I think he took a job at booking.
Um, he writes Wall Street Journal,

uh, the Tda Al Sutter chair for geopolitical analysis
that, uh, coming into a think tank.
Me, you, uh,

militancy and liberalism.
At Discourse.
Um, so this will obviously

be one of the, the fake sponsors that we read in future episodes.
I can't wait to write the copy for that.

No, but so, uh, yeah, that'd be awesome.
Uh, so Mta, Suder just retires and,and I suspect part of the reason is
that Saudis pressured both Aldo Suderand the Shia nationalists in Iraq.
Look, we have a deal with Iran.
We're giving up Iraq to them.
God bless him.
They can take it.
We wanna focus on economic modernization.
We're done with this Shia Sunni stuff.

(34:26):
You don't care.
And so for the past, you know, fouryears, Iraq has been surprisingly
calm, surprisingly stablebecause that side just gave up.
What happens when that side realizesthat maybe they don't need Saudi
support because Iran is weak now?

(34:47):
I think that would be a mistake.
Iran may not have the technologicalcapability to fight against Israeli
fighter jets, but it does havethe technological capability to
support an insurgency in Iraq.
You know, those are two different things.
You're not fighting Israeli fighter jets.
You're fighting a war door to door.
That's something Iran has donein Iraq for the past 20 years.

(35:08):
Nonetheless, this is somethingthat I'm worried about Jacob,
like when I think about thepostmortem of what just happened.
I do think this, uh, ceasefireis highly sustainable.
I think President Trump has justsmacked both Israel and Iran
and said, I don't want to hear.
It's like when I get sick of mykids fighting and I show up and
the sun is like, she started andI'm like, I don't care if I have to

(35:29):
come up back up here one more time.
She's like, you're both in, you know,and it's like, Serbian, Serbian.
Dad is coming out, not Santa Monica dad.
So that's

what Trump did.
Did, um, I I did, did you see that?
Somebody asked Mark Ruddy about, aboutTrump's language and he literally said
sometimes daddy has to use harsh language.

No.
And, and I mean, it's like, that'sexactly, like, that's what Trump I
like, I I see myself in him, likewith my kids and it's, uh, and
so I think this is sustainable.
I really think if Israel crossesTrump again, I think it's gonna
be very bad for the country.
So.
That's great, but the negative is Iraq andI really worry about the destabilization
of that neighboring country.

(36:08):
So that's it.
Like that's, that's whereI'm at right now with this.

All right.
And, and, and turn on the TikTok camerafor one thing from your, I think this is
the first time I've asked for the TikTokcamera on, for all of you ardent Kurdish
nationalists listening to this podcast.
Your time is now and youmight not get another chance.
So if there's going to be anindependent Kurdish state.
Like the, the dynamics that Marcowas talking about right now,

(36:33):
this is where they come from.
ISIS used, uh, you know, a vacuumof power in Iraq to do what
it did to build dec caliphate.
You can use a vacuum of powerin these lands to build the
thing that you're talking about.
So stop squabbling with each otherand if this is something that you
want, like now would be the moment.
And if, if there is a plan in an Israelidrawer that says the next phase of
this is not regime change in Iran, but.

(36:54):
Supporting the establishment of anindependent Kurdish state, which is
something the Israelis have toyed withback and forth through their history.
Like, I will, I will eat my lunch.
If, if there is, if this is part of somebroader strategic plan for the record,
I don't think that's gonna happen.
But like, if there was a moment for itto happen, like the, the power vacuum
that you're talking about, is it Okay,there's my, I. I think of that as,

(37:15):
as out there, but maybe people won't.
Um, let's turn Marco to our last20 minutes for the NATO summit.
Um, I want to read toyou what Mark Ruddy sent.
Is it Mark Ruddy Rutt?
How do you pronounce that?
Ru I think it's Ute Ru.

Our Dutch, Dutch, uh, like, uh, Dutch fans tell us.
Yeah, I'm,

I'm, I'm trained in Arabic, not in Dutch.
Sorry guys.
So, um, I, I, I, I just wanna readwhat he sent to, to Donald Trump, but
Donald Trump posted this on his truth.
Uh, and I also wanna say this soundslike, uh, he went to chat GPT and
said, could you create a message forme that makes Donald Trump happy?
Mr. President, dear Donald,congratulations and thank you
for your decisive action in Iran.

(37:56):
That was truly extraordinary andsomething no one else dared to do.
It makes us all safer.
You are flying into another bigsuccess in The Hague this evening.
It was not easy, but we'vegot them all signed on to 5%.
Donald, you have driven us to areally, really important moment for
America and Europe and the world.
You will achieve something.
No American president indecades could get done.
Europe is going to pay in a big way asthey should, and it will be your win.

(38:19):
Safe travels and see youat his Majesty's dinner.
We should all be so happy as, as Mark,whatever his name is, to be happy to
pay, uh, at the expense of the Americans.
There's the European sideof this, which we'll get to.
I also just wanna sayin the background here.
Big problems in US Japaneserelations, prime Minister Ishiba
decided not to attend the summit.
Japan also very summarily canceleda two plus two meeting that

(38:42):
was supposed to be July 1st.
South Korea has attended thesummit the last couple of years.
They decided not to.
Um, and this is amid reportsthat the Trump administration is
pushing for these Asian countriesto spend up to 5% on uh, uh, on.
Uh, military spending as a percentof GDP as well and trying to retrofit
NATO into an anti-China alliance.

(39:02):
So I think there's an AsiaPacific angle to this.
There's the NATO summit to it, and thenthere's just the sheer comedy of all of
these European leaders understanding thatkissing, you know, see being seen to kiss
the knee is gonna get you what you want.
So no more isolatingTrump off on stage left.
It's like, hey, as muchflattery language as we want.
Um, so take it from there, Marco.
Let's do some cooking.

Well, first of all, I would say that any man would be so lucky.
That their partner looks at them and textsthem the way that Mark speaks to Trump.
You know, may you live a long andfruitful life full of romance,
and that it be filled with little,cute notes of love and affection.

(39:44):
The way that Mark texts Donald, that wasjust dripping like, dear Mr. President.
Comma, Donald, you didn't read it.
You didn't read it.
You're, you're speeding.
You're rushing throughthis pod episode, Jacob.
I know we have limited time,but you have to No, no.
Due the cadence.
You have to say Donald.
Pause.

(40:05):
It was, uh, it was incredible.
And the fact that Trump shared it witheveryone was so diabolically mean.
You know, it's like, it'slike he's acting like.
There's some girl that's texting himand he's sharing it with buddies, you
know, it's like, Hey, look at this.
Look at what, look atwhat Mark said to me.
You know, like, I'm the man.

(40:25):
So, yeah, I think flatteryis definitely working.
Um, did you see that Pakistan nominnominated, uh, president Trump
for the noble, uh, peace prize?
Like how did Oh, yeah.
I actually, I knew what,did nobody else think of it?
Yeah.
Like, hey.
Hats off to Pakistan.
Like what a brilliant move.
Did they, they nominated him and madeit publicly like we nominated President
Trump, you know, like not anyone else.

(40:46):
Well, and

I believe that, I believe they did it 48 hours before the Israel
Iran War started, or, or was it 48 hoursbefore the US decided to bomb Iran?
Like really afraid.
I'm

right.
President Trump bombed Iran.
Not a single person died in the thatbombing, and now the conflict is over.
Well deserved.
I mean, I mean like truth, I mean, look,it's subjective, like, you know, but
no, some journalists will say, like,you use the term, it's been obliterated.
Okay.
Uh, that's why nobody reads media anymore.
Anyways, uh, going back to nato,uh, so your point, uh, yeah, I

(41:18):
mean, look, I think that, um.
It's interesting because PresidentTrump has now said that it's
an extraordinary success, thatthey're gonna hit this 5% target.
Uh, just to explain to everybody,I mean, nobody spends 3% on their
defense, like really in the world.
Like nobody.
The United States of America, Ithink in 2024 was like 2.7% of its
GDPI, I dunno if you'll look it up,but like, oh, yeah, I'll tell you.

(41:41):
Look, getting to 3.5% defense spendingas percent of your GDP is like.
Double what's probably rationalfor most of these countries, um,
their target, uh, of 5% is false.
It's not 5%.
That's just pr.
They're committing to 3.5% in defense,1.5% on infrastructure, like broadly

(42:02):
conceived, where I can see, like, I thinksome of these countries are gonna justify,
like improvements to their healthcaresystem as as necessary for defense.
So.
Let's, let's just, and the other thingis that this is by 2035 a year at
which, you know, president Trump ishighly unlikely to call him out on it.

(42:24):
The world will be different.
And so this is where I would say,you know, yes, I do expect increase
in spending in Europe, absolutely.
But they want to increase spendingin Europe for other reasons too.
They wanna do it forfiscal stimulus reasons.
They want to just havetheir economies grow more.
So they're not spending 5% of theirGDP on military because nobody is,

(42:47):
including the us The US isn't a3.5%, uh, expenditure on defense.

Yeah.
Uh, well first of all, uh, about thespending on military, did you, did you
see what German Chancellor, FriedrichMers said about, um, the German army?
Um,

uh, yeah.
It was very.
Yeah, he was saying like,they're going Korea.
He said, quote that he

wants Germany to have the strongest conventional
army in army in Europe.
End quote, because thatwent so well the first time.
Thank you US government for encouragingGermany to return to the notion that it
means the la the largest army in Europe.
I'm just, excuse me.
I'm so happy about this.
Jacob, I am

sorry to have to correct your knowledge.
Please do.
No, I'm

happy to be corrected.
Yeah, please.

Two times.
It went great.
Two times, not worse.
Wait, wait.

And I looked up, I looked up military spending as a percent of GDP.
There are five countries in theworld that spend more than 7%
of their GDP on the military.
Can you guess?

Okay.
Oh, this is great.
Yes.
Live.
Uh, let's see.
North Korea is one.

No, although I don't, maybe they're not on here
'cause we don't have data probably.
So that's probably a good guess,but we just don't have data, so.
Huh, interesting.
I don't, I don't think the North Koreansare saying to cpr, yeah, this is how
much we're we're spending on this.
That's where I'm getting this data.

Do they have data on Ukraine then?
Is Ukraine one of them?
They do.

Okay.
So Ukraine is, Ukraine is by farand away, number one at 34.5%
is their calculation right now.
Second, I guess, what'syour next four Russia.
Russia is number five, 7.1%.
Okay.
Uh, let me see.
You've got one in five off the table.
Alright.
Uh, is Sudan one of them?

(44:28):
No, I'll, I'll give you a hint.
The rest of our countriesare in the MENA region.

Oh, okay.

Interesting.

Alright.

Uh, two you should get and one I would've never
gotten in a bajillion years,

Iran in Israel.

Israel at 8.8%.
Number two, not Iran, but our Saudifriends at 7.3% at number four, and
coming in at number three, 8% Algeria.

Oh, that's, that would be okay.
But that's, you know whythose are salaries, benefits.

Okay.
But still, like it's,it's still 8% by the way.

That's an important point.
Sorry, go ahead.

No, no, no, no, no.
You go,

no one, one of the things.
The easiest way to boost defensespending is just to give people in
military higher salaries, and that'sin a lot of North African countries
like Egypt or Algeria, like Algeria or

Fasu.
Your favorite on this list at 4.7%.

Yeah, like a lot of that is just like, you know,
the, it's this sclerotic economy.
The highly, highly entrenchedinterest of the military elite.
So I would say that's, uh, that's not likeAlgeria doesn't really have a military
that is equivalent to how much they spendbecause they don't spend it correctly.
But, um, but yeah, the point

is the only other country on this list that spends more as a
percentage of GDP than the United States.
And by the way, Columbia tied withthe United States in terms of how
much, you know, 3.4%, but, uh, 3.4%.
Also US been

3.4% of GDP.

3.4% according to this data.
Um, the only country that is notin like North Africa or a place
like that, that's, that's high.
Up to your point is Poland at 4.2%.

Yeah, that's right.
Poland does spend the most.
So look, the point of thisis like 3.5% is a lot.
It's a lot.
The US is a global, you know, superpower.
It spends 3.4% of its GDP on the feds.
I'm not sure that Portugalor Italy, it makes really any
sense for them to do the same.

Well, and you probably saw that Spain, uh, has secured an exception
so that it doesn't have to do this.
I, I, I actually put on our, our internalresearch platform at at work that, you
know, is this the end of NATO here?
If you're gonna start carving outexceptions for different countries,
and if some countries are gonna say areworried about defense, so they'll say
nice things to Trump and others won't.
And already the Asian economies arelike, all right, we flirted with this

(46:46):
for a while, but why should we do this?
And, and the bombing of Iran, Ithink, sort of reinforces this.

But here's my argument for that.
Here's my argument for that.
So like, does it make sense for Canadato spend 3.5% of its GDP on military?
Why not get Canada to build refiningprocessing centers for critical minerals?

(47:11):
So if you're trying tocreate the Western Alliance.
Like, maybe you should start byensuring that it's not Chinese rare
earth minerals in your missiles.
Uh, maybe that's, yeah.
I don't know.
Like I'm just a stupidgeopolitical strategist.
But if your missile is built withlike 70% Chinese components, maybe
part of the military spendingand security should be that.

(47:34):
So like, I'm not sure that it makessense for every country to just
buy more fighter jets and tanks.
Instead, you can look at criticaladvantages that other countries have.
Canada, as an example, hasa lot of natural resources.
It has some processing of thesecomplicated, um, minerals in,
in certain parts of Canada.

(47:55):
For example, in trail British Columbia,a very interesting piece of Western
critical infrastructure, one of thelargest lead processing centers that also
does some rare earth minerals as well.
So like you could, you couldcontribute to the western.
Effort, if you will, withoutjust giving salaries to colonels,
you know, to meet the 3.5% line.

(48:17):
And I fear that that'swhat's gonna happen.
A lot of countries, like, you know,Belgium, what are they gonna do?
Like, Hey, should webuy more fighter jets?
Should we buy more tanks?
You know, that's all really difficult.
It's just like, double everyone'ssalary and we'll satisfy Donald Trump.
You know, that's, that's where I thinkthis is a little bit too, like rote.
But, but you're,

you're betraying, you're betraying your globalist credentials.
You global fillic, uh, apolitical analyst.
You, the point here is not toimport refined materials from Canada
and some of these other places.
First of all, Canada's supposed to be partof the United States in this metaphor.
The goal here is to make really,really good shiny military equipment
and sell it to the rest of the worldto balance the trade ballots and make

(48:59):
these US military industrial companies.
We're gonna do the refininghere in the United States too.
So.
And by the way, in, in your one bigbeautiful bill that you think is like, uh,
is fiscally conservative, like, you know,you know, where we're, uh, increasing
spending on the military budget so thatwe can sell those guns and those weapons
to all these other different countries.
Well, we, we all hope that you enjoyedthe four door air show that we put on

(49:19):
here to show you some of this wonderfulbunker busting technology that we'll
be offering to the, it's like DwightEisenhower is rolling in his grave.

No, I mean, that's so, yes.
I mean, a, a lot of this is just, um,yeah, I, I. The media's covering this
as if it's a, a fair, complete, it's allthese countries have until 2035 to do it.
I think that they will do it in many ways,but they will spend it really on defense.
Um, and so, you know, it, it's justaligns with political interest of

(49:47):
whoever, everyone, president Trumpcannot say that he got Europeans
to do something nobody else did.
Europeans can satisfy their own domesticpolitical logic by boosting their economy.
But I don't, you know, I don'texpect every one of these countries
to spend as much as the us.
The other thing though, I would say whatis significant, Jacob, is that a lot of
people went into the Trump presidencyexpecting him to withdraw from nato.

(50:11):
That he is, you know, likenot committed to nato.
He now, after this Brussels summit,I mean, the words he's using, he's
now like committed to the pod.
He's saying this was his achievement.
He's put his stamp on it.
We know how President Trump's ego works.
He's now, you know, as, as far as thenext three years of his presidency go and

(50:34):
perhaps beyond, like he's now pro nato.
And that's, I think the big picture here.
Like President Trump is notgoing to pull out of nato.
Um, and that's kinda a sweet spot forEurope where it both has Friedrich Merz
out there saying we need to re-arm.
And at the same time, it stillhas that American umbrella because
he doesn't seem to have qualifiedit at this summit unless I'm

wrong.
Well, and another, another betrayalof Trump's principles like America.
First, we're not gonna defend theEuropeans, but we are gonna defend
the Europeans via, via nato, and theEuropeans are gonna be strong again.
Maybe they'll rename it tto, theTrump Atlantic Treaty Organization.
That sounds sort of good.

If they were smart, they would.

Well, and this is why I, we, we started with the media and then
we start to close in or start to landthe plane on the media, which is the
way the media is covering this thing,is they're saying, oh, isn't it so gross
and odious that all of these Europeanleaders like the, like Mark, are texting
Trump and treating him like this king.
It's the courtier and everything else.
And it's like the story youshould be telling is of.

(51:36):
Course they're doing that because that'show you get things out of the man.
I don't think anything hasfundamentally changed here.
I think the Europeans and all the SouthKoreans, Japan, they've all woken up
and realized that the United Statesis not reliable or dependable anymore.
Now they can't flip the switch and justturn on the United States immediately.
They still need things from the UnitedStates, and as much as they can get
things from the United States, they will.
And if you are.

(51:57):
Gonna deal with Trump, you either haveto be big enough as China to punch back
and willing to absorb the pain or likeget ready to kiss a lot of Trump butt
because that's the way you get to him.
You say really, really nice things to him.
You flatter him, all these other things.
So the way to cover that is theseEuropean leaders are actually getting
the things they want out of Trump.
Things that are against the things thathe's campaigned on before, by saying

(52:21):
really, really nice things to them.
So you may feel that it's odious becauseyou don't wanna say things to leaders
like that, but you're a journalist.
If you wanna report on what's going onhere, report on how the Europeans are
playing him and report on how Japan andSouth Korea are basically being like, I.
Uh, we're not even sending PlayStations.
What the f You just bombed Iran.
And you want us to show up and dothings because you tell us to, you

(52:41):
can't even decide, you know, howmuch you want us to spend on military
or what tariffs you want on or off.
We're, we're leaving the meetingsuntil you can figure something out.
Like I think this is actually a bigsignal that like you, like multipolarity
is accelerating and us strength.
Is not what it used to be.
I think you can say thatexactly about the Israelis too.
Like even Trump saying, stop the bombs,like having to scream, stop the bombs.

(53:03):
Like, true.
Nobody's listening to this guy.
They're just all flattering.

Well, I, I think, you know, um, there's limits to every argument, you
know, and I think multiple is clearly.
Uh, otherwise Israel would nothave attacked Iran, uh, without
much of a warning to the US withoutreally involvement that would not
have happened in a unipolar world.
But at the same time, justlimits to that, right?
Like the US And this is alwayssomething that I always caveat,

(53:29):
especially for American audience.
I. A multipolar world doesn't meanthat every country is equally powerful.
That's not what it means.
It just, there just no one countrywith preponderance of power.
But it doesn't mean thatthe US is still not the most
powerful country in the world.
It is.
As President Trump said, the only countrythat can deliver a payload, such as it
was and Fordo from Missouri, like that'sthe only country in the world that can

(53:52):
go that distance with that payload.
And it's the only country that cantell Israel after watching it for
two weeks disobey the US effectively.
Eventually Israel runs outtarockets, you know, to defend itself.
And now us is Aha.
Now what, so, you know, the problemwith these arguments, Jacob, is
sometimes people get too literal andtoo, like, well, what do you mean?

(54:12):
Like, well, it's nuanced, but ina, in a unipolar world like this
would not have happened either way.
You're, you're correct.
I mean, it's, it's, it's a push andpull, you know, and one of the things
that will deepen multipolarity, likewhat will deepen it, is that Germany
will have the largest conventional army.
In Europe, which will mean thatit's one of the top five greatest

(54:33):
military powers in the world again.

Yeah.

And that will deepen, I dunno if you saw.

I dunno if you saw also, uh, president Trump, just in the last,
as we've been talking, has been justrailing on the Spaniards for not, not
agreeing to spend this much money.
Um, Spanish markets also downas a result that, uh, I don't do
much trading, but I'm, I'm prettybullish on, on Spain in general.
But, uh, yeah, I, I, I think that justreinforces what we're talking about.
Like if you don't, if you're not niceto him, if you don't do what he says,

(55:00):
like he's gonna do this to you, so.
Why wouldn't the Spanish government justbe like, sure, we'll spend it, we'll do
whatever you want, and then not spend it.
Like that's an own goal.
May maybe they're powerful enoughor they're They're fine enough,
they don't want to, but yeah,

it's a total own goal.
It's a total own goal.
And the reason it's an own goalis because it's until 2035.
Why would you stick your neck out?
Everybody else fell in line, youknow, not because they're afraid
of Trump, but because why would yougo through the trouble of fighting?
United States of America on this, likethe, the, the goalposts are so wide

(55:37):
on this target that you can drive abrand new aircraft carrier through it.
So like why push against it?
And so, yeah, I I would argue that,you know, um, we have that top 30
leaders, um, trade value coming up.
Pedro Sanchez may haveto drop a little bit.

Uh, he was.
Uh, newsflash.
He was not in my top 30.
All keep mind.
Anything else, Marco, before we go?
I gotta get outta here.

No, that's it.
Uh, I think the postmortem is done.
Um, just as a summary, I think this,uh, it's nonsense to discuss whether the
nuclear program is obliterated or not.
It is highly, highly, um, unlikelythat, uh, Iran's going to get a
nuke in the next like 12 months.
US can mow the grass withfurther military strikes.
And then the thing,uh, is regime survival.

(56:25):
Probably here to stay.
The question is how it evolves.
That was your point.
And then finally, I would focus on Iraq.
That's where I would wannawatch for signed And Iranian
weakness is going to lead to moredestabilization in the region.
And finally, um, in closing, what Iwould say is send your loved one a text.

(56:46):
And if you need help with howto structure it, read Mark
Ruiz comments to Donald Trump.
They were very sweet.
I.

Uh, lessons on sensuality from a political nihilist.
That's great.
Uh, rest of the world.
Please don't blow anything up.
So we can do our leadershipcolumn, uh, podcast next week.
Like give us a week here, guys.
Jesus.
All right, me too.
See you later.

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