➡ The current state of affairs between Iran and the United States is tense, with no clear plan for a deal. There’s a possibility of conflict if Iran strikes northern Israel, which could end the ceasefire. Iran has a motive to acquire a nuclear weapon, and the recent attack has strengthened this argument. The situation is unstable, and there’s a risk of an economic crash and escalating conflict.
➡ The article discusses the political and military situation in Iran, focusing on the country’s support for Hezbollah and its stance against the US and Israel. It suggests that while there is general support for the government’s actions, some Iranians are unhappy about resources being diverted away from Iran. The article also discusses the possibility of a disagreement between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, but suggests this may not significantly impact the relationship between the two countries. Finally, it speculates on potential future military actions by the US in Iran.
➡ The text discusses the ongoing tension between the U.S. and Iran, with a focus on the potential for military conflict. It suggests that the U.S. might be delaying action to allow ships to leave the Persian Gulf, and that Iran might be considering developing a nuclear weapon as a response to the situation. The text also mentions the role of other regional players like Turkey and the Kurds, and the potential impact on the global oil supply.
➡ The text discusses the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon and the potential reactions from the U.S. and Israel. It suggests that the new leadership in Iran is secretive and confident, which could indicate a shift towards nuclear armament. The text also mentions the possibility of the U.S. and Israel building a case for intervention based on this potential threat. Lastly, it discusses the urgency of the situation due to an impending oil crisis, suggesting that a resolution, whether peaceful or violent, needs to happen soon.
➡ The text discusses the current situation regarding oil prices and reserves, suggesting that there may be a lack of planning or strategy. It highlights the rapid depletion of oil reserves, which could lead to a sharp increase in prices and economic pressure. The text also mentions ongoing attacks on Russian energy infrastructure and the potential for these to impact oil production. The overall tone suggests concern about the future of oil markets and the potential for economic instability.
➡ The text discusses the complex political situation involving the US, Europe, Russia, and Ukraine. It suggests that the US and Europe’s policies are inconsistent and confusing, with the US showing disinterest in Ukraine while still being involved. The text also mentions that Russia is facing challenges due to attacks on its oil infrastructure and slow progress in Ukraine, but it continues to advance. Lastly, it suggests that Russia’s actions may be influenced by its relationship with China and the need to maintain Chinese support.
➡ The text discusses military strategies and the challenges faced in a conflict situation. It highlights the common mistake people make when preparing for emergencies, emphasizing the importance of quality over quantity. The text also mentions a freeze-dried food company offering a variety of long-lasting food options. Lastly, it explores the potential involvement of Belarus in the conflict, suggesting it’s unlikely due to their small army size.
➡ Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus, is reminding people that his country has nuclear weapons, but it’s doubtful that Russia would allow Belarus to use them. The situation in Iran is uncertain, with the US in a difficult position and unable to easily withdraw without damaging its credibility. The economic consequences of the conflict could force a change in strategy, but it’s unclear what that might be. The speaker suggests that the US might just leave Iran, but there’s also a risk of escalation, including the potential use of nuclear weapons.
➡ The speaker discusses the importance of preparing for the future, even if it seems distant. They mention that older generations often prepare for the sake of their younger family members. The speaker also highlights the potential for economic instability due to current debt issues. They recommend a channel called “Conversation among the Ruins” for insightful father-son discussions on various topics, including unique perspectives on global issues.

I don’t see that there’s any deal. I don’t think this administration or even the US government is capable of actually making a real deal with Iran. Either there is some kind of plan, like we’re saying, okay, we’re going to strike in two weeks and we’re going to play this game in the meantime, or maybe there’s no plan. If, for example, they strike northern Israel, that could be the end of the ceasefire and we could be back at it. Iran does have an incentive to get a hold of a nuclear weapon. The argument in favor has received a huge boost from this attack.

We killed a leader that really had put the brakes on it. Yeah. We could very well be at the edge of war and we could even see mushroom clouds. If they see that it’s a choice between a loss and using nuclear weapons, they just might go for it. World War Three is already happening. This is a house of cars and it is in the process of collapsing right now. You’re going to see an economic crash the likes of which we’ve never seen. Hi, folks. Canadian prepper here. Today once again, I’m joined by Peter Erickson, co host of Conversation among the Ruins.

It’s a father son show where Peter and his son Charlie break down geopolitics and civilizational decline. Peter brings a deeply self taught polymathic perspective to these issues, shaped in part by decades of work as a freelance writer and translator across legal, financial, military and technical fields. Now, Peter, I know you’re really on top of this Iran situation. What do you make of the current state of diplomatic purgatory that we find ourselves in with Iran and the United States? What are they waiting for? We hear there’s a new operation that started on Friday that was announced whereby they’re going to try to de mine the straight or something.

Yeah. At the Same time, we’re 99.9999-9999 of the way, close to a deal, you know. Right. Rubio apparently hasn’t heard from Iran in, in six days and it doesn’t seem like the terms have changed. They’ve even gotten more maximalist. So what is your read on this situation? It’s what we’ve been seeing for weeks now. I mean, if anything, it just seems like the pace of this, there’s sort of this pattern, you know. Yeah, we’re just on the verge of a deal and then all of a sudden, you know, new conditions are imposed on Iran, new demands are issued by Trump in a tweet.

Then there’s some kind of skirmish in the Gulf, you know, it’s hard to tell really what happens. And then we go back through it. You know, it’s kind of like it’s in the past. It seems like the whole pace of this cycle is sped up. So whereas before it was like every two weeks, now it’s like every 24 hours. And I think we just had the Iranians yesterday say, forget this. You know, we’re just not even. It’s not that they were even negotiating, but, hey, we’re just not going to even exchange messages with you. And the reason for doing that, I think there are probably many reasons, but the one that they, they prioritized was the ongoing violations of the ceasefire in Lebanon.

You know, the Israelis have been really intensifying their attacks and then are threatening, I think actually recently did launch an attack on Beirut, which they had promised not to do. And then they were threatening to launch a major attack on Dahia, you know, the southern suburb of Beirut. And there was, in fact, you know, the residents of that much suffering district, they were fleeing, you know, in anticipation of another major assault, assault by the Israelis. But then, okay, the Iranians said, enough. This was part of the original ceasefire deal. You know, this was. It was agreed to by all the parties, you know, or at least by the US And Iran and Israel, you know, as a junior partner of the us, that, yeah, Lebanon was a part of it.

Now, the Israelis never really stuck to that, you know, obviously, and now they were just being so blatant in their violations that the Iran Iranians called him on that and in fact, threatened that if you go ahead and launch this assault on Dahia, you know, we’re going to strike northern Israel. Apparently, Trump got on the phone and got the Israelis to pull back, at least for the time being. Netanyahu in Israel was criticized, you know, from both the left and the right. You know, you’re not standing up for Israel. But then in Hebrew, he said, basically, don’t worry about it, you know.

You know, we’re going to do what. We’ll strike Beirut when we want to strike Beirut. And that’s what we’ve seen in the past. You know, he may be pulled back for a while, but it looks like there’s a potential that Lebanon can blow up. The. I don’t even want to call them negotiations, the message exchanges, you know, which maybe we’re getting somewhere, but. But I. But on the other hand, I don’t think ever really where it was never as close as Trump sometimes claimed it was going to be. And the problem was really Trump himself and all those people that were, that are just vehemently opposed to any kind of deal between, between Iran and the United States.

You know, all the Israel firsters and you know, other warmongers, they did not want to see this happen. They always seem to get, get to Trump, you know, before he crosses the finish line and he blows it up. And then we go through this, they go through the whole thing, the whole rigor mural all over again to the point where I just hardly pay attention to what, what they’re saying now. Yeah. And it almost seems like they’re, they’re okay with people develop that sense of apathy for the whole situation because like you said, it’s on an hourly basis.

Now. It was at one point it was a monthly basis where Trump would flip flop that it was a weekly basis and it was a daily. Now it’s like hourly. Soon it’s going to be, you know, what minutes, what min the hour is it that Trump flip flops? Do you really think though, to me it seems like there’s got to be something more that is causing Iran to back out of these talks than just Hezbollah. Like it’s a proxy. But Iran’s primary task is taking care of its 90 million people and their material needs. And I think that those economic issues trump any sort of ideological ties with Hezbollah.

Like, I can’t see them completely shelving all negotiations simply because of, of Hezbollah. I mean, I could be wrong about that. But we also know that after Nasrallah was taken out, I don’t think Iran did anything right away anyways. I mean, obviously I can’t remember the exact chronology of events, but we’ve seen situations in the past where there, there have been these huge breaching of boundaries and red lines and Iran hasn’t done anything. So I, I find it interesting that the entire multi billion dollar enterprise would be put on hold over a spat in southern Lebanon.

Like, is that. Yeah, no, no, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a very good question and it’s something that I’ve been thinking about too. Is this really about Hezbollah? Now is true. In the past, the Iranians have actually been rather weak in their support for their allies or proxies, you know, whatever you want to call them there. And there were reports, I remember from last year and the previous year that there was a great deal of anger in Lebanon about this. Hezbollah was quite upset at the Iranians for not coming to their aid, not standing by them, you know, not keeping their word.

Now, okay, maybe There’s a. They’ve kind of. There’s something has changed so that they, you know, they. For whatever reason, they have decided, okay, let’s say. Let’s. There are two possibilities here, okay? The Iranians have decided that they’re ready to go back into this war, this kinetic conflict. They’re prepared. You know, they repaid, repaired all of their missile cities. You know, they have replenished their stockpiles, and they’re ready to go. And they see that the other side hasn’t. That’s a possibility, you know, because this could. This could very well lead. If, for example, they strike northern Israel, that could be the end of the ceasefire and we could be back at it, the next phase of the kinetic war.

But then maybe it is ideological, because on the other hand, I think there has been a change. Back then when there were these complaints about Iran, okay, we had possession. We still have Possesskin as the president, but he’s not primarily responsible for foreign policy. As the supreme leader, it was, you know, Ali Khamenei, the father of the current leader. And I, you know, in spite of all these things that have been said about him, he was, I think, actually very much a moderate and very cautious. And I think we’re seeing maybe that his son is less so.

His son comes out of the irgc. His son, you know, became leader as a result of losing his. Basically his entire family. His father, you know, his wife, his mother, you know, just. And he himself, many reports state that he himself was severely injured in the attack. And so it just may be that, you know, we have somebody who is just really committed to these principles of the revolution and is ready to fight and fight on behalf of Hezbollah. Now. It is, you know, what you say is, like, any government has its main responsibility to its own people.

And when you look at the polls, you find in general, like, within Iran, there is support for the government and its war against US and Israel. But when you ask about Hezboll Law, I think there’s still majority support for them, but it goes down significantly. There are a lot of people who are not really happy about this, you know, axis of resistance. They feel like it’s diverting resources away from Iran, and that’s not surprising. That’s the way people are. But it may be that we have a government that is ideologically committed and is going to stand by them.

You know, again, we do have new people in charge. So again, I would just say there’s two possibilities. They have decided, well know we’re going to risk this because we’re ready to fight. All right? And then maybe, you know, it’s just that, no, we got to stand by them. This is who we are. All right? Of course, those two are not mutually exclusive. It could be. What’s, you know, both of those things are going on at the same time. It’s interesting that you say that the Ayatollah might be more militant and ideologically driven because he has remained, retained a low profile throughout all of this.

We haven’t seen of him since the war started. And that’s a degree of vigilance that we didn’t really see with his father. You know, he would kind of. He was already kind of resigned to the fact that he may be taken out at any time. But it seems like the idea that the son of the Ayatollah is still in hiding is a testament to his degree of vigilance that suggests that, you know, he’s ready to fight a war. Like, there’s a reason why he hasn’t emerged yet. And that’s different, you know, that’s different than the. His father.

Yeah. No, I think. I also know that he has a long history with the irgc, and, and I think within the irgc, you know, the support of. Of allies, of proxies is very, very important. And it may be something that he, you know, that he really deeply believes in. And there’s some, you know, it’s not entirely just ideological. Yeah. There is a reason to stand by your allies. Right. You want to show that. That they can rely on you because they can help you, too, in turn. You know, there’s. It’s a way of, you know, if Israel has to fight on more than one front, it does weaken Israel.

Yeah. I kind of view it as, through the biological analogy of, you know, these are your various appendages, these proxy groups, and, you know, at some point, you may have to forsake them for your vitals to preserve the vitals. But of course, like you say, they. They do serve a purpose, a strategic military role in this entire conflict. And so they do have a lot of value to. Because that’s kind of essentially the avant garde in many respects, as far as Iran is concerned. We heard recently that according to Axios, who not many people have a lot of confidence in anymore, that there was a quarrel between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump.

Now, I personally think this has been hyperbolically overblown, and it’s somewhat contrived because we heard this same thing, I think, several times in the past, you know, that Trump is reading Netanyahu the riot act and it seems to be serving a couple different purposes, one of which is appeasing, you know, the MAGA crowd who wants to know that Trump’s in control. But it also kind of obfuscates the situation for the Iranians and then it creates the illusion that there’s some divide and that maybe there’s a real prospect of peace possibly. What’s your read on that report? Yeah, well, you know, it might be true, but again, it might not be very significant.

It’s just that maybe they did exchange angry words and chewed them out and whatever, but in the end, okay, yeah, perhaps there’s some personal friction, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to a real division between the two states. I recall that prior to the 12 Day War last year, we had similar reports coming out and, and you know, a lot of people, including myself, was saying, well, maybe there’s a real division here. And then of course, you know, a week or two later the Israelis launched their, their attack on Iran and then Operation Midnight Hammer followed that.

So perhaps there was some kind of spat back then, but it clearly didn’t mean anything. It didn’t affect the, let’s say, geopolitical calculations when it came down to it. So yeah, I, I just wouldn’t, you know, maybe it happened. It might have just been invented, you know, as again, a smokescreen. If it did happen, I doubt that it really means a whole lot. Contrary to popular belief in the apocalypse, most people aren’t going to die by the hands of marauders. In fact, you’re probably going to die from disease. This is why you need antibiotics. The problem is getting them requires a prescription.

Well, today’s sponsor is Jace Medical. They’ve created a revolutionary service that allows you to get prescription medications like antibiotics with relative ease, hassle free. This will be worth more than gold in an emergency for somebody who needs them. So do yourself a favor and take your prepping to the next level while you still can. Check out the link in the description below. And now back to the video. What do you anticipate that they’re waiting for? Because right now we have what appears to be some kind of shadow war going on in the Strait of Hormuz. There are reports that there have been several altercations that haven’t been reported by the UK mto.

And now the US is recommencing demining operations. It seems like they’re waiting for something. Are they waiting for an opportunity to strike again? Or are they just, are they really just in A predicament that they didn’t foresee? Or is this just part of a, a long term ploy to try to subvert Iran once again? Because now Iran’s Internet is on and that creates a potential vector for attack. What is your read on what their, what potential military maneuvers might be executed by the US in the near future, if, if at all? It’s, you know, it’s really hard to say.

It’s just there are different possibilities. And, you know, one, I guess the one that I favor but not particularly strongly, is that, you know, Trump himself is just floundering. He’s, he doesn’t know what to do. And that’s what we’re talking about. The, the, you know, at the beginning of this podcast, we’re saying we’re going through the cycle. You know, it’s just like, oh, there’s a deal. No, you know, but they got to give us all the highly enriched uranium, which, you know, clearly is unacceptable. Blows up the deal, you know, and, you know, we just seem to be going back and forth, and that just may simply be Trump, I think that’s at least part of it, who just does not seem to have really the strength of character, the strength of intellect, you know, to really stick to his guns, to make a decision and stick to it.

You know, this was something that was said about him even in the first term. It’s just like you want to find out what he’s, you know, what he’s thinking, you know, find out who he talked to 20 minutes ago and, and maybe, you know, like I said, he, he hears and he, and one level, he understands what a difficult situation they’re in, how there’s, there really is no military solution and the best thing is just to get out of there. And he kind of understands that, you know, but then there are these other people that are clearly very much set on getting him back in again.

It’s the entire Israeli security establishment and, you know, and all their allies within the US are, you know, are again, passionately opposed to a real ceasefire and want to go back in. So it may be that he’s like, you know, a ping pong, you know, on a ping pong table, going back and forth, back and forth. You know, that that is a real possibility. Now on the other hand, it may be that, you know, he has no intention of really making a deal. He’s decided that already and he’s just delaying. For some reason, he’s been told by people, you need to get some, you know, something else has to happen, like we need to get more of this or more of that.

You know, our stockpile of this is depleted. Like, just this morning I was reading that their stockpile of MQ9 Reaper drones has been severely depleted. You know, the Iranians destroyed about 30 of them, worth more than a billion dollars. Prior to that, the Houthis had shot down something like 25 or something. And the stockpile is way down. And actually the global stockpile is down. And then according to some people, there were just very few in the region, and maybe they just had to get more of those in. It’s an important part of, of their, you know, calculus.

Yeah, the attack package, you know, so maybe it’s just something like that. And, and there is a plan to, to strike within a week or two weeks, and then just, you know, we’re just going to go through these silly games of talking about some kind of deal or, you know, pretending there’s an argument with Netanyahu, and. But, you know, they, they’ve already worked out. You know, we’ve seen this happen in the past, and they are, they are going to go back in now again. I, I don’t know what they could do differently. Perhaps one thing that could happen this time around is that there will be ground forces.

Maybe not American ground forces, but Kurdish or Baluchi. You know, there’s been a lot of talk, especially the Kurds in particular, and I think the Iranians are concerned about them. You know, they’ve made strikes actually on the bases in northern, northern Iraq. There, interestingly, there was a strike where. Well, just a couple days after the strike, both the British and the Americans announced that one of their soldiers died in an accident. And, you know, I think it’s. Clearly, they must have been killed in a strike that was carried out by the Iranians, but there is always that possibility now.

But that may not happen. And I think probably the reason that won’t happen is Turkey. You know, Turkey does not want to see the Kurds empowered in any kind of way. And that’s what I’ve heard. Is that, like the first time around, the Erdogan, you know, put his foot down and said, no, you’re not doing this. So I doubt that’s going to happen. I don’t know what they can do, to be honest. That’s the thing. It just seems like, are you going to just go back in and try to do the same thing? That’s. Are you going to start, you know, bombing those missile cities all over again? You know, it could be that they’re.

They’re trying to create a pretext of Iran is intransigent. They’re not willing to come to the table now they’ve suspended negotiations. Ergo we have to go in and, you know, utilize the, the one of our, our, our would you call it scorched earth sort of policy of taking out their energy facilities and now there’s to do so. Right. And, and again, like the violations in Lebanon that could provoke an attack on northern Israel. We could provide him with that justification too. Yeah. And so we’ve also heard that there’s been attempts by the US to escort vessels out of the strait.

Now, I don’t know how much you factored this in, but there’s still hundreds of ships that are stuck in the Persian Gulf and many have a lot of cargo on them, probably worth billions of dollars in terms of getting these ships out. I’m sure there’s a lot of financial, financial interests at play. Do you think this is sizable enough of a factor that could be motivating the, the pause in order to try to facilitate the egress of these ships through the strait? Because there’s not a lot of ships inbound. They’re trying to get a lot of outbound.

Obviously there’s so many risks that I don’t think, unless there was some pretty ironclad guarantees that these ships were going to have a plan to get in and get out. I don’t think they’re going to be sending a lot of ships in, at least not at this point. Do you think that the U S Is attempting to, and I’ve heard this theory floated that they, they’re trying to evacuate the Persian Gulf before commencing major military operations. Well, you know, I guess there’s, there’s something, there could be something to that. Yeah, it’s not clear that they, they claim, they, they claim they escorted 70 vessels in the last three weeks.

Yeah, I somehow I doubt that. Again, I, I, I’ve been looking at those tracking, you know, tinker track, tracking maps and you know, maybe they turn off their transponders and they close, go close to the shore of Amman. That’s been claimed. Yeah. Who knows? But 70 even so in three weeks still is not very much, let’s say, you know, let’s be honest. You know, we’re talking about three a day. It’s just a trickle and there’s still hundreds back there. So even if that is true, it’s just, it’s not going to really change things significantly. And let’s say even if you got all the tankers out.

It doesn’t change the fact that there are still plenty of targets for the Iranians should the shooting start again. I mean, there are, there’s all that oil infrastructure. You know, they’ve done damage to it, but they could do a lot more. And that damage I think would be much more significant than even the loss of all those ships. So yeah, you know, there’s an incentive to get them out there, but that seems to me relatively minor in the, in the, you know, when you look at the larger picture. Yeah, one would think that, you know, the, whatever dollar amounts are involved here with these hundreds of ships, it couldn’t be that significant.

There is a humanitarian issue which we all know they don’t care about. They care about the cargo, they care about the, the vessels. And like you said, it potentially being a part of Iran’s target list. So, yeah, I mean it’s, it’s a thought, but it seems like there has to be a reason why they’re, they’re waiting. And Larry Johnson, I’m not sure if you heard, you probably know who he is. He’s a former CIA analyst. Right. Apparently he has intelligence that Iran is going to withdraw from the non proliferation Treaty. And it’s a pretty out there prediction, but that they’re going to test a nuclear weapon.

And I think he cites Pakistan’s foreign minister. He said that he personally delivered a message to Marco Rubio on Friday stating that Iran is prepared to demonstrate a nuclear weapon should the escalation continue. So when we’re looking at situations like this, sometimes we have to do a negative inference and figure out what isn’t happening to try to figure out, to figure out what is happening. We have to look at what isn’t happening. And there’s a reason why they’re not attacking Iran, I think right now. And it could be because they’re, they don’t have all the assets in place just yet.

Do you put any stock in this? Because right now this is kind of scuttlebutt and yeah, I, you know, I’m a friend with Larry Johnson and he’s a friend of the Channel, but he has, you know, said some things in the past too that didn’t really materialize or at least not publicly. What’s your take on this? Yeah, well, you know, I have to say that’s possible, it’s quite possible. I, you know, I have no way of confirming it. You know, I obviously. But Iran does have an incentive to get a hold of a nuclear weapon. You know, let’s be honest that they Always did.

And the argument in favor of a nuclear weapon, I think has, has received a huge boost, you know, from this attack. It doesn’t mean that they will, you know, others have, have pointed out that, well, their success in shutting down the Strait of Hormuz shows that they have another so called nuclear option. They don’t actually have to go to a nuclear weapon, but maybe, you know, again, this is a new supreme leader and just kind of a new leadership that’s younger and, and angrier and you can understand why they’re angry. And they, you know, it’s like we look at all this appeasement, you know, we bend over backwards to do all this stuff to show that we’re reasonable.

Look where we got us now. We just, we’re just gonna have to play, you know, we’re gonna have to play hardball and, and the hardest of those hardballs is a nuclear weapon. Right. So that could be, you know, one thing we were talking earlier, like, you know, why are they actually making such a big deal about Lebanon? Is it just a matter of principle? You know, it might, but maybe they feel emboldened. You know, we’re just, I was kind of thinking perhaps there’s other things, like conventional reasons that they were feeling emboldened, but possibly it’s just like, okay, we’ve got our hands on a nuclear weapon or may either they develop their own or they got it from Pakistan or, you know, who knows? And so, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, I’ve been reading statements by, you know, Galloba, the head of the Iranian Parliament and from the irgc, and they’re, they’re quite, what’s put it this way, there is, it looks like they’re, you know, they are, are clearly just fearless.

You know, they, they, they seem to show no fear. You know, it’s just like there’s doesn’t seem to be much caution at all in the things that they’re saying. It’s like they know something. Right, right. So it does. That could explain this kind of language and the kind of behavior that we’re seeing now. We’ll see. You know, I, I don’t reject that out of hand. I find it believable. But I, who knows, it could be again, that it’s just, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s this new generation and it just a confidence in what they’ve done so far and what they have, you know, aside from a nuclear weapon.

But that would help to explain, you know, their, the, the current, you know, attitude that we, we, we see, you know, that’s in Iran. Yeah. Because they are very defiant and they seem extremely confident in their ability to confront the U.S. despite the threats of existential annihilation. And so I don’t think it can be overstated the extent of the secrecy of this new leadership and the fact that he, he has yet to be seen. And there’s got to be something, you know, about that, that that would transfer into, that’s amenable to, you know, the construction of a nuclear weapon.

Like, if anybody’s going to do it, it’s a guy who remains that elusive and. Right. Well, it is very competent and vigilant and not putting himself at risk at all. If he’s that vigilant in that respect, I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t be thinking about introducing that into their military calculus, which is really the only effective deterrent in this type of situation. It’s proven that way for Pakistan, for North Korea, and for any other country that has achieved a nuclear status. It is really the only thing that will effectively deter the West. So the question is, why wouldn’t they? And of course, they’re not going to announce it, mind you.

On the flip side, I guess the counterargument to this could be, well, maybe the US And Israel are trying to subtly build a case here and say, well, this is why we have to go in now, because we have intelligence now that they’re developing a nuclear weapon. And apparently Trump just installed a new national head of national intelligence who was like, I don’t know, former Secretary of Housing or something completely unrelated or. Right. Ready Fannie Mae or something, a banker. So who knows, you know, is he just going to be a lap dog And I guess we’ll see.

But do you have any other thoughts on, on any of that? Well, yeah, well, you know, first of all, about the lap dog, I think that that has been the trend. That’s the difference about the, the Trump second term is that he has found people that above all are personally loyal to him. So I think that’s, we found, you know, Tulsi Gabbard, you know, went a long ways to appease him. And, you know, I think it, I think, really humiliated herself many times, but it wasn’t enough. You know, clearly there was some resistance there from, you know, on her part, and so she had to go.

So now, yeah, he’s got a lap dog and that’ll just make it easier for them to do whatever they want to do. I think that’s clear. Yeah. Many people are rebuilding a case here to, to do an intervention that, okay, Iran has, has not renounced it. Well, that’s true. You know, it’s just maybe that’s where that could explain. Actually, come to think of it, you know, the resignation of Tulsi Gabbard is that they wanted her to basically fabricate that case. And she’s gone a long ways, you know, again, to, to comply with Trump’s demands, but she wouldn’t go that far.

And I mean, now they found somebody who will say, yeah, sure, I’ll fabricate a case for you. You know, we’ll, we’ll leak this intelligence they’re two days away from a bomb, we have to strike immediately or something like that. That’s certainly possible. That could be happening. And then the other possibility is that, of course, Iran is actually going for a bomb. Now after all this, you know, again, we killed the leader that that was, really had put the brakes on it, that issued the fatwa against it, and we’ve given him, you know, clearly very powerful motivation to go in that direction.

So it could be real, too. That’s the other possibility. Yeah. You know, either way, you know, we’re. Yeah, we could very well be at the edge of war. It seems like the Israelis would likely use nukes preemptively if that was the case, or they would escalate this thing. I don’t like to say independent because I don’t believe that they’re independent from the US or to the extent as a lot of people think, but it seems like they would have all the incentive then to go on the initiative once again and recommence hostilities before Iran could weaponize and not only build a nuke, but have the means to effectively deploy it over long distances and, and have enough of them to pose a, to become a deterrent.

I don’t know how many they would need. I think people have estimated at least a dozen that they would need in order to pose a formidable threat to Israel and get it to refrain from doing so. Right. I’ve heard, I think, according to Theodore Postal, it would take three, you know, kind of Hiroshima sized bombs to take out Tel Aviv. Right. Which would be, you know, of course, a catastrophic blow to Israel. Yeah. Well, one thing, you know, Israel does have a history of using nuclear weapons or threatening to use nuclear weapons. It happened actually, I think prior to the Six Day War, they had a plan to actually set off to detonate a nuclear weapon somewhere in the Sinai as a warning.

They never, in the end, the war went their way. They didn’t do it, but they had that, you know, they, they had actually, you know, laid all the groundwork for that and were prepared to do that if necessary if the war had gone a different way. And then during the Yom Kippur War, you know, they found themselves on the back foot. They were actually starting to lose that war. And they, in fact, it was. Golda Meir was the prime minister at the time, so she issued an authorization to use nuclear weapons. And they, they prepared. I, you know, I can’t remember how many, half a dozen or something.

And the Americans knew about it. I think what Jonathan Pollard said, that the, you know, they actually had a, you know, had a bomber out on the Runway that clearly was carrying a nuclear weapon that they knew the Americans would see. In any case, the Americans knew that they had this plan. And in the end, in response, the Americans really picked up their support for Israel and began this huge airlift that turned the tide in the Yom Kippur War. So one thing, there are a lot of things that could happen. Yeah, Israel could just come ahead and use it.

A use of one of the many nuclear weapons I think they have. Anywhere people say like 90 to 250 or they can threaten to use it, they could say, look, you know, we just have to do it. This has become such a critical situation for us. We’re going to have to go nuclear. And, and that, you know, could again, just bring the US Back into the war and on maybe another even more intense level than before. You and many others have talked about how the oil inventory and availability crisis is going to culminate sometime around July, that that’s when we’re going to start reaching tank bottoms.

And when the SPR is going to. It’s already, I believe, crossed. It’s the lowest it’s been since the 80s or something. I can’t remember exactly when, but it’s at abysmally low levels right now. And it’s not really. It’s kind of a false equivalence because in the 80s there was less people, we were using less energy. And so the problem is actually magnified by those things. But obviously there’s a time limit here. And so unlike other conflicts like Vietnam or even Iraq, to an extent, Afghanistan, you can literally watch, I imagine, like an hourglass full of oil, you know, and the clock is ticking.

So something has to happen in the next three months. Either they make a fake deal or they attack. And if they do attack, it’s got to be pretty quick, because if it isn’t, it’s going to lead to a global economic crisis. Right. That’s unparalleled in history. Right, right. So have you thought about how that factors in, in terms of expediting whatever it is that their plan is and because to me, they would have extricated themselves from the situation if they intended to by now. Because I think, as we’ve talked about last time, there’s been so many off ramps and so many of Trump could have declared victory many times over.

And even if, you know, he could have convinced his audience that Iran charging tolls is not a big deal, I mean, he, you know what, you know, Trump could, you know, B.S. yeah, no, I agree. So if they were going to make a deal, I think, or if they were going to, you know, acquiesce to, to certain demands, and they would have done that already, but they haven’t. So they’re doing, they’re getting ready to do something, but the clock is ticking, clearly. We know that much. Like, yeah, we’re looking for the no knowns. That’s a known.

Known. Yeah, I think, yeah. No, it’s quite an extraordinary situation. You can think, you know, either there is some kind of plan, like we’re saying, okay, we’re going to strike in two weeks and we’re going to play this game in the meantime, or maybe there’s no plan. That’s the other kind of scary thing when you’re talking about Trump. There just maybe no plan and maybe he’s kicking, keeps on kicking the can down the road. The problem is we don’t have much road left. You know, that’s the thing. So at some point, you know, yes, something has to give.

You know, there’s pain now, there’s pressure. Gas prices are high, inflation is, is ticking up and it’s going to start to accelerate. You know, that’s all there. But it is like you say, you know, again, a lot of people are saying in July, I think, is where we’re going to see a sharp increase in both fuel prices and I think, inflation, too. At the same time, what happens, my understanding is that the SPR has a ways to go. You know, it could, it could. They’re drawing it down at record rates and they’re drawing down the, the inventories.

Those are the ones, you know, the. Held by the oil company companies. Yeah. Now it’s those oil company inventories that are going to run out over the course of July, I think, beginning at the end of this month and then over the course of July. So we will see a sharp. We should, you Know, if I don’t see how we could see a sharp rise in prices, then I think the pain will be, will be such that, yeah, no more kicking the can down the road if they didn’t have some plan. You know, Trump is just going back and forth.

That’s all it is. He wants will be forced to do one thing or the other. It’s, it’s really quite an extraordinary situation. I mean, it’s just that again, prices are really lower than they should be, you know, given the situation, given the fact everybody agrees, nobody, you know, nobody out there that knows anything about, you know, oil and the energy markets disagrees with this is the largest oil shark in, in history. And yet prices, yeah, they’ve gone up, but they haven’t gone up the way they should. And I, There may be different reasons for that, but one thing is that they’re just drawing down these reserves so quickly, which is just, you know, it’s sacrificing the long term for the short term.

It’s kind of like. I was just thinking of an analogy before we got on. It’s like being on a boat, you know, where you look, okay, well, I got two weeks worth of food here. I think I’ll make it to the shore in two weeks. It should be okay. Yeah, let’s just keep on eating it like the way we’ve been doing before. Right. But what happens is like, you know, at the end of those two weeks, wait a second, I still don’t see the shore and I’m all out. You know, the smart thing to do is.

That’s a perfect metaphor, I must say. Right, so you’re not rationing at all. Yeah, we’re operating on the futures promise that in two months, oil prices are going to be, what, 93 bucks? Yeah. A barrel. Right. And some people are operating as if that’s the reality. Yeah. So. So when it hits, you’re not ready. You know, you should actually start slowing your consumption. You need to start allocating resources wisely. We’re going to just go off a cliff at that point. It’s, it’s. I find the whole thing extraordinary. I just can’t believe what’s going on here. But it’s happening.

It’s happening before our eyes. And, you know, maybe it’s again, like Trump is convinced he has some great plan. You know, these. Something. He’s going to do something in two weeks. So he’s just, in the meantime, you know, he’s going to depress the oil prices and then we’re going to be out of this. But of course this whole war started on some flawed assumptions and we, I’m afraid that that’s what we’re going to see again. That’s what it seems like, man. It seems almost, now that you put it that way, like the messaging coming out of the White House X account.

Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine. It’s exactly what you would expect to see in a movie where, you know, Armageddon is on the way and the President is just trying to keep everybody calm. And I’m not saying Armageddon’s coming, but I mean, it could be the way things are going. But yeah, it definitely seems like they, they have this little scheme that they’re about to hatch and they’re just trying to, like you say, keep the market stable. Until that time. I had a friend once who’s very knowledgeable in geopolitical affairs and he talked about how they always try to crash the price of oil before they go into a war and oftentimes it’s done months in advance.

And I don’t know if that’s true, but I think the more they can bring the price of oil down, the more Runway they’ll have when the shooting starts, I guess is the thinking. But interestingly, Russia is the other part of this equation. So in addition to having this unprecedented oil deficit, we have constant attacks on the second largest producer of oil in the world. Trump hasn’t said a word about it. And you think if he had all the cards in Ukraine that he could say, hey, let’s reinstate this moratorium on attack, preventing attacks on energy facilities that was in place at one point, but now it’s just, you know, recklessly attacking non stop.

That situation is spiraling out of control. Right. And you would think that they would put the brakes on that because they could. I mean, the Ukraine, there was a video released the other day of these Ukrainian drone bombers using Palantir software to direct these drones. Right. I mean, they just put it right out there. They’re not at all all trying to restrain Zalinsky from instigating a broader war with the Russians. So it one has to wonder then, or do they care about oil prices because just simply, you know, putting the plug on that should, you know, actually bring some relief to the oils market.

So that’s part of this situation that I don’t really understand. Maybe I have some thoughts on what’s going on in Russia. Well, it does seem like a very incoherent policy. Like on the one hand we actually Renewed the exemption, you know, on the oil sanctions that were, you know, directed against Russian oil that was extended for another month. So it was an, obviously an effort to actually get more Russian oil out there and to, to, you know, lower the international price of oil. Yet on the other hand, right, there are these ongoing attacks on the Russian energy infrastructure.

Now my understanding is that recently they have not been very effective. You know, sometimes they seem rather dramatic. Maybe they blow up, you know, a storage tank and that can make a lot of smoke and fire, but it doesn’t really affect output significantly. There was, there were some, some studies that came out recently. You know, one was by a Western media outlet, maybe it was Financial Times, I can’t remember. You know, the name escapes me now. The other was Medusa, which is a, is a Russian very anti Putin, anti Kremlin outfit. And they studied this very closely.

And both of them, both of these outlets agreed that, that some real damage had, was done, like at the end of last summer when these, these attacks were really took off, you know, and there was a dent in oil, in oil production in Russia, you know, maybe a couple percent, but, you know, that’s, that’s still significant, you know, especially when you. Oil markets are so tight, but that recently that over time the Russians learned how to deal with it, which is something that we’ve seen again and again in this war. I think one thing, you know, maybe they, they set up better air defenses at these refineries, but also the refineries themselves learned how to, to effect repairs very quickly.

So it does not seem to be having a significant effect at this time. But still, it’s crazy that it’s happening, you know, that they’re attempting to do that and they may eventually succeed. You know, who knows. They have had some increasing successes with the new drones that they’re getting from, from the US and from Europe. Europe. And then in the, in the meantime, the Europeans are, you know, just the other day the, the French and the British seized a tanker in the Mediterranean, you know, which just seems like, just almost a suicidal move at this point.

You know, which you’re, again, you’re faced with these problems. The Americans were being a little bit more rational. It’s like, oh, we got a problem here. Let’s kind of, yeah, let’s, let’s forget the sanctions game for a while. You know, we got it. You know, we need our oil. The Europeans are not doing that. You know, they, they’re in support. Well, you know, I guess there’s just one exception that I can think of and that is that the, the British actually did agree to start buying, I believe, jet fuel from the. The Russians because they were in such a terrible fix.

But that’s actually, you know, that Keira Starmer did that. But he came under a lot of attack for doing that, and that’s the one exception. He was in general criticized by the. The EU for doing that. The EU is still. Seems to be committed to the suicide pact. You know. Yeah, it’s. It is hard to explain. You know, again, it is an incoherent policy. You’re right. You know, the Americans do have a veto power in there, and they could make sure that this stops, but they don’t. You know, it just as I think a lot of it is incompetence.

You know, again, this is an administration that’s often at odds with itself. And I think in what we have in Ukraine is that the CIA was given carte blanche and they’re just completely, you know, all in and, you know, in league with the Europeans. Trump himself, you know, and the White House is not very interested in Ukraine, is just kind of looking the other way and kind of pulling out. But. But not really because they let. But as you know, our involvement is still there. It’s just. He hasn’t really shut it down. He’s just. He’s personally uninterested.

So we have, again, this incoherent policy. We have the. I guess it was the Secretary of the treasury saying one thing, and then we have, you know, drone attacks, you know, carried out by another agency of the government, you know, which has the opposite effect. And it doesn’t make sense. But I think that that’s what we have is an incompetent and rather, you know, just in general chaotic, just, yeah, blind by the seat of their pants type thing. I’m a little skeptical of the report that this is not having a deleterious effect on Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure, because it really does.

And I pay close attention to it. Every day there’s another massive conflagration. And I mean, at some point that, that’s got a sting. Like, I know they. There’s, I think, part of this Orientalist view that, you know, what hurts them, it doesn’t. What, what hurts us, doesn’t hurt them type thing. And that Russians can just, you know, always find a solution to, to fix, you know, this army of workers that can just go in and repair these refineries and immediately. Putin obviously escalated for a reason. I don’t think it was because of the dormitory Thing. I know a lot of people think that, but there have been a lot of red lines that, you know, have been equal in terms of the human cost that Russia could have justified intensifying strikes on Kiev.

But it seemed like this was starting to wear on them a little. I mean, it has to. I mean, the amount of, like, there was some refineries that got completely destroyed, like the one in the Black Sea was. I mean, they hit it like, I don’t know how many times, and then they hit it again. And so that’s gotta have an effect. I mean, you know, but maybe, maybe there, there, there’s this rosy case that it isn’t. Maybe that’s the information that’s being given to Trump to prevent him from, you know, calling attention to it. But.

Right. It’s hard, Right. It’s so hard to know. You know, there’s so much manipulation of information. And you’re right. You know, I know that, like other energy analysts have said that, yeah, this is real. This has taken Russian oil off the market. Yeah. And if that’s true, and it may very well be true, then it just makes the whole thing crazier where, you know, we’re removing the sanctions and we’re striking the refineries. Right. It is a contradictory, incoherent policy, as you say. But, you know, Putin went and met with Xi, and then all of a sudden he’s leveling Kiev.

Maybe not leveling, but, you know, definitely the biggest attacks by far that we’ve seen took place yesterday, just 10 days or so after Putin met with G. So clearly there was some coordination. What are your thoughts on that, that coordination that’s happening in all of these theaters of conflict? Do you think, think that there is coordination with what’s happening in Iran and what’s happening with Russia and China? I’m sure there is to some extent, and I, I think there’s no question that the Russians have always, you know, especially Kremlin and Putin himself have been very concerned about maintaining Chinese support, and they’ve factored that in to, you know, their, the strategies that they’ve employed, you know, in their war against Ukraine.

And I think it probably has constrained them. It just may be that the. Yeah, perhaps in this meeting with, with Xi, you know, that she said, okay, yeah, I understand where you are. It’s, you know, you do what you have to do. You know, maybe he’s, you know, rather than urging caution, he said, okay, yeah, you just have to do what you have to do. I mean, there just maybe reason partly because they see what, what the Americans have done over the last few months, you know, in Venezuela and Iran, and they can see that both of those to some extent.

Certainly maybe they weren’t really intended to attack Iran or China, but they potentially had that effect. You know, clearly in the case of Venezuela, you know, it did have that effect, and it could in the case of Iran, too. They say, yeah, okay, they, these people, they need to be taught a lesson. And again, I understand if you’re going to have to escalate there. Yeah. The other thing is that I know a lot of us in this kind of geopolitical dissident space are very confident that in the Russian effort and in, you know, again, I’m not saying the Russians are losing the war, they’re winning the war, but the truth be told is it is going very, very slowly.

It was looked like it was accelerating last year, and then it began to slow down again. They’re still advancing, but very slowly. And it could be if they’re going to take, you know, the four oblasts that they promised they’re going to take, it could be like eight years from now at the current rate. I was just, the other day, I sat down and just did a little calculation, and they have to cross the Dnieper. You know, they’re looking at a real slog there. You know, you could call it a quagmire. You know, again, they are winning, there’s no question about it.

But it’s, it’s not easy. It’s going very slow. And there has been a real, you know, uptick in these, these drone attacks, not just on, on the refineries and other oil infrastructure, but on even Russian logistics and so on. The, the. And that may in, in very well be in part to, let’s say, offshoring of their drone production. Well, Dmitry Medvedev even, you know, called attention to that several weeks ago when he said that we know where all these facilities where the drones are being made in Europe and we’re going to attack them. Right. Yeah. And, you know, one thing is like, it does call into question the Russian strategy.

You know, they’re going after military infrastructure, including, you know, military production facilities. But if a lot of that production is now in Europe and the U.S. you know, what good does it do to keep it contained within Ukraine? You know, that’s the real problem for them. You know, we, we have, not only do we have the Europeans churning out these drones, but, you know, recently, as the Americans have, there’s a Hornet drone that has proven to be really quite effective, a mid range drone. And that is being provided to the Ukrainians for free. You know, at least according to, to events in Ukraine, which is something that I follow.

And it is causing real headaches for the Russians again. You know, they, I, I think it’s still fair to say it’s important to emphasize they do have the edge overall. I, you know, I, I believe in drone where for and all this, but this, this war is not easy for them. And so there is real pressure on the, the Kremlin to really take the gloves off and bring this to a speedier conclusion. And you know, maybe you’re right. I, I think that you’re probably right about that. You know, that terrible attack on the dormitory in Lugansk, that wasn’t, you know, what caused this series of strikes on Kiev.

We’ve seen two so far. You know, we just had one last night. I think that that was already in the works and they framed it, you know, it was something that the Russians do I think from time to time. You know, at least Putin is just that he doesn’t want to escalate more than he has to. He just wants to escalate, you know, within the kind of the military strategy that he’s already worked out. And that’s what they’re doing. We’ll see if it works. I think clearly he’s trying to avoid striking targets outside of Ukraine, but it’s going to become increasingly difficult as time goes on again, if all these production facilities move outside of Ukraine.

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The number one freeze dried food company in America, the only one that I 100% resolutely endorse wholesale freeze dried foods. Use the coupon code in the description for free. 15% off. What do you make of his inefficacious attempts to deter NATO with this retaliatory policy that like you just explained, if they’re targeting these weapons facilities or even decision making centers for that matter, which can just go underground and Kiev has no shortages of underground, you know, bunkers and stuff like that. There’s a growing body of criticism against Putin that he needs to, like you said, prosecute the conflict more expeditiously and he needs to get it over with.

And it seems to me that this attack on Kiev last night was maybe symbolic, I guess we don’t know what happened obviously, but clearly Kiev anticipated it. So I highly doubt that any, you know, high ranking officials were caught up in the, the fire. So all this is going to do in my mind anyways. I, I don’t think that this is going to achieve deterrence. If anything, this is likely just going to, you know, cause more pearl clutching in the collective west and say, well now we have to support Kiev even more. And you know, look at the horror.

There’s residential buildings and there’s 18 civilians that died. And so this just seems very unimaginative for a guy that’s supposed to be the, the chess master and that’s supposed to be, you know, and granted he’s, he’s unflappable, he has patience, he’s very composed under pressure. But yeah, the Kanov crowd is saying, hey, like we got to do something extreme. And the, the problem is I worry that the longer they postpone that the, the broader, the conflict is going to get. And you’re familiar with the correction of doctrine, right? Use one nuke now or a thousand later.

And so yeah, I think you, you said it well that this is likely going to be ineffective and it is going to lead to an even broader conflict, unfortunately. Do you have any other thoughts on that? Yeah, yeah, I don’t. You know, look, the, the air war has been going on for a while and you know, the Russians have very effective weapons, but Ukraine is still standing. They still manage to provide enough electricity for their people, you know, just barely now, but they can, and you really can’t win a war from the air. You know, that’s well established.

It’s the same applies to your risk, Iran. And so, you know, that’s the foolishness of the Israelis and the Americans to think that they really can defeat Iran from the air. Now of course there is a ground war going on, but I think that’s, I think that’s where he’s got to commit and where he’s got to accelerate. You know, I understand the caution because with these, these drones, these large kill zones, there’s a potential for some pretty heavy casualties. But I think at some point you have to just really push through. You have to, you know, bite the bullet and.

Right. And, and if you get moving, because it seems to me that, you know, why the lines are static. You can set up all these operations centers, these drones and, you know, just kind of maintain this constant pressure with these drones. Even with a, you know, a fairly minimal number of soldiers, you can do it. Right. But if you do get the line to start moving faster, you push then, you know, then you can actually break down that whole defensive network. You know, maybe I don’t understand it, but that seems to me the case. And they do have these two entire, the Russians do have two entire armies in the reserve that everybody says is very well equipped, you know, experienced, well trained, ready to go.

Why doesn’t he commit them? You know, just, you put them in, you know, already the Ukrainians are just straining to hold the line. But if you just put in these soldiers, like in different parts, they’re. It seems to me that the line could just snap and you could finally, you know, achieve some kind of breakthrough and. But they haven’t done that. You know, maybe again, it’s just that I don’t have the, the understanding of, of all the military technology, but it seems like, you know, maybe it’s risky, but I think at this point you have to take a risk.

Yeah. Like I, I’d have to, you know, consult with a military expert about this. But I’m sure like the fiber optic drones that can’t be jammed are a big factor in why they can’t do such a maneuver because they could just be saturated with those. Unless there is a way that they can, you know. Yeah. Deeply shoot them down. Right. Because I, I’d imagine a situation where you tried to send a thousand tanks in and, you know, you’re surrounded by air defense, multi layered air defense. Right. But, you know, if they have a way to penetrate that, that wall, then you’re pretty much screwed, which may be the case.

Yeah. I guess what I’m thinking. Yeah, I understand that. You know, with it, you know, it’s not just the drones, but it’s just the satellites and the, the surveillance drones. It’s just impossible to, you know, gather forces and, you know, to, to concentrate them on one part of the front. Right. But maybe just by extending the front, you know, it’s like, because there are parts of the front that are not active in Kharkov and Sumi and, you know, and if you could just, if you could just activate, you know, maybe like half of the front is active, but you just, if you actually launch an offensive along the full thousand miles, you know, approximately that it just may be what would, would, would finally just cause the Ukrainians to collapse? You know, again, this is an amateur’s speculations, I admit it.

But I, I’m wondering again, you know, maybe there’s, maybe there’s reasons you can’t do it. Maybe it’s risky. But again, I’m saying I think just be a logistical nightmare, too, because you had talked earlier about how they’re hitting their logistical lines, right? So that, that is probably something that is preventing them from executing any, you know, major big arrow maneuver. And in addition to the fact that, like you say, they can detect this from satellites, so you almost need like several decoy armies amassing in certain places to misdirect and try to, you know, draw fire or whatever.

What do you think of Belarus’s role in this and all the speculation that they may enter into the conflict in some capacity? There is rumors from the Ukrainian side that that’s what’s happening. Is that just their excuse to preempt some sort of offensive in the north, or is there some legitimacy to that? What’s going on? I think it’s highly, excuse me, highly unlikely that the Belarusians are going to be, you know, are launching or planning some kind of attack almost impossible. One thing is they don’t really have much of an army. I think their professional army is in the tens of thousands, like 20,000 or something.

It’s very, very small. You know, they have a lot of reserves that they could draw on, but there’s no signs that they are, you know, massing forces or preparing for any kind of attack. So there’s been some speculation. I guess I here, I’ll have to credit Simplicius, the thinker that he says that, you know, maybe what’s going on is that the, the Kiev regime is actually planning to pull off another Kursk, this time in Belarus, because there is, there has been an actual increase in border incidents from the Ukrainian side in those. In, you know, along the border with Belarus.

And it would just be something to, you know, again, it’s just a crazy gamble, but the Ukrainians, you know, will do anything. You know, we’re talking about how this is difficult for the, the, the Russians, but it’s, you know, of course, the Ukrainian situation is even worse. They’re, they’re desperate. They’re looking for some Way to broaden the war. And maybe this is, you know, like the latest. But is this why, is that why Lukashenko is brandishing nuclear weapons? Because he knows that, you know, I think that, like, recently they did have that exercise right, with a joint exercise with the Russians that, that involved, you know, the nuclear forces.

I think that was planned well ahead of time. But yeah, you know, I think he has an incentive to remind people that, look, we are actually a nuclear armed country. And, and so, you know, please think twice about trying. I mean, I guess at the same token, though, the Ukrainians invaded Kursk and Russia didn’t nuke them. So, yeah, the Ukrainians take a chunk of Belarus. Is Belarus going to be authorized by Putin to use nukes? Yeah, I doubt, knowing Putin, I doubt it. I really doubt it. You know, I, I think again, we should all be very, or the Europeans and everybody should be very thankful that Putin is the president of Russia.

He’s not the kind of person to do that. But Medvedev or somebody who could be, you know, potentially, if we should lose, God forbid, Putin, we maybe, you know, Well, I, I gotta ask you, like, what is your prognosis? Like knowing that there’s a, you know, for the first time in a long time, in many of these conflicts, we have a, we have a timeline for how long we have left. We have three months or whatever for oil. Where do you see this going? Where are you putting your money on, metaphorically speaking, in terms of how this situation is resolved in Iran and maybe even the broader geostrategic picture, what is your, where do you think will be by summer’s end? Yeah, that’s a tough one.

You know, there’s, there are all kinds of possibilities. You know, I really don’t know, you know, because it’s just like the, the, the US has gotten itself into a huge fix and it’s not just Trump. I talk about Trump, but it is a fix for the US Government. I think they made a very serious error here, but it’s one where they cannot walk away from this without suffering a huge blow to their credibility. So again, it’s not just Trump and the Israelis. And, you know, all that is, that’s really true, you know, I mean, those, those are forces keeping them in.

But there, there is just this logic. You know, it’s just like we, hey, we can’t actually lose to the Iranians. We can’t let that happen. We just can’t. But then do you have a solution? You know, what, what’s going to go on? These wars can go on for a long time. You know, just like, think about Vietnam. I think in the case of Vietnam, we understood it a few years in the war. Oh, we really can’t win this war. But we stayed there because neither could we lose it, you know, so we just. But there also wasn’t the economic consequences.

Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. So that may be what forces, you know, some sort of decisive change in strategy. But that could go different ways. You know, it could force us to leave, you know, with our tail between our legs, and that would be the best thing. You know, again, it should have happened earlier, but it maybe will just be forced out by the economic pain. That’s a possibility. And so at the end of the summer, we’ll just see. I don’t see that there’s any deal. I don’t think this, this, this administration or even the US Government in general is capable of actually making a real deal with Iran.

But I think we could just leave. I mean, by virtue of the fact alone that the Ayatollah is yet to be seen, you’re trying to make a deal with somebody who is an enigma, who isn’t even at the negotiating table. Now. You’re talking about a framework for a memorandum for. Yeah, some sort of, you know, like, we’re so right. Yeah, we’re not even. We’re not even getting to deal territory. It’s just right. It’s. It’s the very first stage, and we can’t do that. But. And, you know, from the Iranian side, the Iranians are playing tough, you know, are.

Are playing hardball. On what level is completely rational? Because they have seen in the past how we have not kept our commitment. So they want to see actions up front. He says, okay, you know, we want to see you unfreeze these assets. We want to see you pull back. And, you know, we’ll do this in stages. We want to see real actions. Can we really do that? You know, it’s going to be humiliating for us. I think it would actually be easier for us. It’s still a humiliation, but less of a humiliation, you know, because we could do it sort of on our own terms.

Yeah, we succeeded. You know, we can just declare that we won, that some sort of objective was achieved. You know, again, we, as you mentioned, Trump is great at doing that and just get the hell out of there. We delayed the nuclear program. We killed their military. They could spin it as a wind in 50 different ways. Right, exactly. And they. It would have been easier to do, you know, a couple months ago, but he can still do it. It’s just like if you actually get a deal where you’re saying, okay, yeah, we agree to give you these billions of dollars, of course they’re.

We’re not giving it to them. We’re just returning money that we stole from them. But. But that’s the way that it’s going to be depicted. That’s the way that Trump depicted Obama’s unfreezing of some assets. Right? He’s made fun of that. I just can’t see them actually doing that. I don’t think they’re capable of actually really exceeding the demands and saying, okay, okay, you know, well, we agree to your terms. I think it’s just easier for them to leave. So that is a possibility. The economic pain becomes such that they just leave. But then we have those pressures again from the Israelis, you know, who, like we’re saying, they say, no, you can’t do this.

This is existential for us. We’re going to have to go in and bomb them with nuclear weapons, and then we could be pulled back in. You know, just like we find it just impossible to get out of there. We could still be fighting, and we could even see mushroom clouds, you know, by the end of the year. You know, I don’t want to say that’s impossible. I’m not predicting that. But there. There is a possibility. There are, you know, people who are desperate and who have that capability. You know, again, I’m talking about the Israelis, but us, too, and who, you know, if they can’t.

If they. Who cannot accept a loss, it just can’t. And if they see that it’s a choice between a loss and using nuclear weapons, they just might go for it. So I know you’re. You’re a family man and your son is. Has just welcomed a new member into the world. What are you guys doing? I. I think you’re down there in the southern U.S. ish. Yeah. Yeah. Tennessee. Tennessee. And so what are you guys doing to prepare for this eventuality should it come to pass? Are you guys preppers or are you. Charlie has done some of that, and he talks about doing more of it.

And, you know, it. I think it’s right. You know, I find myself talking about all these possibilities. I. Partly because I’m an older guy, I just maybe. And I don’t have a young family, I just kind of think that I’ll just write it out. However, I may not be rational, but Charlie is thinking about it, and I think he actually has made some Moves to begin preparing for the eventuality. You know, one thing that I’ve done is I ended up, you know, we sold a house, we moved into a rented house and then I took a lot of that cash and put it into gold.

Just because I think there is a real chance of hyperinflation as one, one way to protect myself. I probably should do more. You know, I just don’t, I probably think too little about the practical things in life. You know, I talk about these big issues and I sometimes stop, I forget that, oh yeah, this is going to come back and have an impact on me personally. Yeah, well, I mean, I, I, I always ask this of any, you know, geopolitical analyst that I interview because oftentimes they have a awareness of, you know. Right. How bad things could possibly get.

But as the saying goes, you know, the cobbler seldom has shoes and sometimes we forget, you know, that we too will be susceptible to whatever sort of long tail effects. There are these, these altercations. But you know, being a, a grandfather as well, you know, you are, you’ll be looked to for advice on multiple levels and you’ve probably seen a lot more. You come from a, you know, an era where, you know, it wasn’t that long ago but, you know, life was a little bit more challenging than it was for Gen Z and whatever we’re on now, Jen, I think we’re already on Gen Beta now, so already I can’t keep up with it that I have a lot of viewers who are, you know, over the hill, so to speak.

And you know, their motivations to prep typically revolve around, you know, the, their younger generation, their progeny and things of that nature. So, you know, I, I totally understand and relate to your, you know, perspective of kind of just being resigned to, well, you know, I’m, I don’t, you know, I’m not planning for 100 years out at this point. Right. But, Right. You know, there still is, you know, a lot of people who will be dependent on you, you know, to, to show them the way if, you know, hits the fan and. Right. You know, so I’m glad, I’m glad Charlie’s prepping.

Yeah, yeah. You know, he started making some moves in that direction and it’s like with the, the gold, you know, it’s just like it was a few months ago actually where, you know, I was talking about how we are facing the potential of hyperinflation. You know, it’s just like this, the current debt situation and you know, it’s not sustainable and I firmly believe that. And I remember just sort of afterwards thinking, well, wait a second here, you know, you’re talking about this, you know, this, you know, why aren’t you doing something? So take the first step.

You know, I just, I need to be little bit more practical, but. Well, I’m glad to hear that. And I’m gonna have to have Charlie on the show next possibly and see if having a conversation just, you know, that would be great perspective and I would encourage people to go and check out Conversation among the Ruins if you want some authentic father son dialogue. Oftentimes in these conversations, you know, there’s always that academic push, pull, showmanship even to some extent, you don’t get any of that on your guys channel. It’s just the father and son talking about these issues, both incredibly knowledgeable.

And I find that you approach it in a way that is, you know, nothing is taboo. I mean, you guys were even talking about how maybe this whole, you know, maybe Israel is going to be thrown under the bus and that this is all a psyop to try to frame and scapegoat Israel. And that’s a perspective that’s not often discussed. So if you want, you know, to hear unique conversations and takes, go and check out Conversation among the Ruins guys. You won’t be disappointed. And thanks again for coming out and look forward. Yeah, thanks for inviting me.

Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Take care down there in Tennessee. Okay. All right. The best way to support this channel is to support yourself by gearing up@canadianpreparedness.com where you’ll find high quality, quality survival gear at the best prices. No junk and no gimmicks. Use discount code prepping gear for 10 off. Don’t forget the strong survive but the prepared thrive stay safe.
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