Col Doug Macgregor: IRAN WAR Not Ending Anytime Soon

I think that at this point the administration wants very much to convince everybody that everything is just fine and this won't last much longer. No, everything is not just fine. The UAE just shut down the largest oil refinery in the world with no prospect of reopening anytime soon. You have a similar set of circumstances in Qatar. In other words, whatever you say about what you're doing to the Iranians, you have to look at the facts on the ground. Are the Iranians continuing to launch theater ballistic missiles? Yes. Are they continuing to hit targets in Israel

and around the Gulf region? Yes. We haven't even talked about eastern Iran where you have more underground missile city cities, none of which have been touched because frankly, frankly, eastern Iran is out of range for the most part of our weapon systems. So this this is not ending anytime soon. But I certainly understand why President Trump said that because he wants to reassure the markets. But eventually the markets are going to figure this out. Well, and that that's exactly where I was going to go next because that that graphic I'm showing here, uh this is

showing that uh the the Gulf nations have slashed output by 6.7 million barrels a day. That's 33% of regional production for the reason you just mentioned that the storage is full uh and that they can't uh they can't bring any more out of the ground. But just for everybody's understanding, the the the way this works is that the system is designed to not have war. So that when they pump stuff out, they put it in a holding tanks for a while, the ships come in empty, they fill them up, they Roll out, and it's just

this non-stop whatever 15, 20 million barrels per day. Well, if all of a sudden you shut down the straight, then there's nothing to offload and those storage tanks are not made to go for a long period of time. So now the only thing left is to shut down production and that's going to have longer effects even after the straight gets opened up. But right now Doug, I haven't seen any evidence that it's going to be. No. The first thing we need to to keep in mind is that roughly 25% of the world's oil is now

offline. That's a quarter of the world's oil supply. Now that is offline not for a few days or for a few weeks. In some cases, it's indefinite. So, that's the first thing. 35% of the world's fertilizer is now no longer being shipped. And that too is is a vital uh aspect of our lives that we don't pay a great deal of attention to. You know, natural gas fuels over 40% of US power. Higher gas prices lead to immediate utility bill increases for consumers. So, what's this mean? US manufacturers of fertilizers and chemicals face higher feed

stock costs. It eventually we're going to see the price of food and consumer goods rise dramatically. And what about monetary policy? Persistent energydriven inflation could prevent the Federal Reserve from cutting any interest rates as they previously planned in 2026. So When you when you go to regions of the world, you look at a place like Europe, you know, we went into March 2026 with a very low inventory compared with previous years, roughly 46 billion cubic meters of liqufied natural gas or liqufied gas and uh uh global gas. So at the end of February compared to

60 billion cuban meter cubic meters in 2025 we have 46 billion. So by February 28th there were reports coming in indicating that LG liqufied natural gas specific storage fell below 30% capacity. In Asia the demand rate remains extraordinarily high particularly in China and India. Each of those countries depends upon 50% of their oil from the Gulf. And even though uh Iran has said if it's a Chinese or Indian ship, you get to go through the Gulf. Well, if you're if you're not refining anything, if you're not extracting anything, if you can't store anything, what does

that say about the global supply outlook? So we expected that there would be in 2026 a projected rise of say 7% in global LNG supplies the fastest growth since 2019 driven by new projects in the United States Canada and Qatar now that's gone that's out and everyone is feeling the squeeze you just go down the list 100 day buffer as of 2026 China holds 104 to 115 days of net import cover in its strategic petroleum reserve targeting the shadow supply. Well, by capturing Maduro and Venezuela and striking Iran, the US has taken has effectively shut

down the two primary sources of discounted oil that China used. The result, China is now forced to buy more expensive, transparently traded oil from the global market, rapidly depleting its cheap reserves. You know, I guess what I'm trying to get across is we are not feeling the profound impact as quickly as the rest of the world, but it's going to catch up with us. It's going to catch up with us. And you mentioned you mentioned a second ago, Doug, that that uh President Trump has got to be keenly sharply aware of this because that's something

he actually has always paid attention to. But he's also trying to calm markets here or he was last night trying to do exactly that by trying to say this whole oil thing not a big deal for us. It affects other countries much more than it does the United States doesn't really affect us. We have so much oil. We have tremendous oil and gas much more than we need. We have Venezuela now as our new partner, great partner. And it's a massive source of oil, gas, everything. We're in a very good position but very unfair to

other parts of the world like China as an example. I mean we're doing this for the other parts of the world including countries like China and we're protecting the the world from what these lunatics are trying to do. Now I wonder if you could talk about that Doug because obviously we do have plenty of domestic oil but oil is a global commodity which still affects our in our economy. I wonder if you could explain what the risks are for us. Well, I think the first thing to understand is that uh inflation is going to catch

up with us and electricity costs are going to rise. Industrial goods will become more expensive and our monetary policy is going to be constrained. You can't cut interest rates in the current setting, current environment. So I think those three things, electricity costs, industrial goods, monetary policy, all of those will affect us negatively. Now, that may not be felt uh by the middle of April, but I suspect you'll start feeling it by then. But certainly by the time the summer hits, it's going to get ugly. And this is something that's going to hurt us badly as

a country through the summer and will have profound consequences for the president. Now, when you go overseas, of course, the global economy and and recession are not going to make us make friends for us. And I think the pressure on us to end this, whatever it takes for us to end this, will be enormous. Now, when I say whatever it takes, I'm not talking about a nuclear weapon for God's sakes. What I'm saying is that people will say this has got to stop. And if you're desperate uh because of the impact of all of this,

then you may be willing to weigh in on the side of Iran, which I think is going to happen, frankly, particularly when it comes to the Chinese and the Russians. And in fact, that's actually what I want to talk about next. Uh because uh first of all, despite Trump's calm words there to try and make the markets calm, that can work on just American Joe Q public That watches on TV. It's not going to work for the people who really understand what's going on. But I think Trump's real uh terrifying and fear of all what's

going on and his anger really showed up after he made those comments when he posted this on Truth Social to where he's uh just really just kind of going over the top to warn Iran and anyone else that if Iran does anything that stops the flow of oil within the straight of Hormuz, which as you pointed out is already the case, they will be hit harder by the United States 20 times harder than they've been hit thus far. Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Rand to ever

be rebuilt back as a nation. And then he goes on to talk about that and you know, we better keep the straight of Hormuz open. This tells me that he is aware of how critical this is and he's trying to use words to coersse the opening of the straight. But the question is, will that work? Is that going to coers Iran to open the straits? No, not at all. In fact, right now, I think from the Iranian perspective, they are being told either you submit unconditionally to what the Israelis demand. That's important to understand because

the demands that President Trump has been making are not his. They never were. They are Israeli demands. So, what are they? No enrichment of any kind. You effectively have to dismantle your ballistic missile inventory so that you can pose no threat under any circumstances to Israel and you can't have any friends or allies in the region with whom you cooperate. The is the Iranians are not going to do that. They're not going to surrender and they know what surrender means. So, frankly speaking, I think they're in the mode of it's better to live on your

knees and die standing up. So I I don't see any evidence that what President Trump is saying will happen. The other point is that he was complaining earlier that uh these ship captains that are responsible for these tankers are gutless. Why doesn't someone try to force their way through the straits of Horus? I guess he doesn't understand the insurance industry. You can't ensure anything that tries to go through the straits. They're they're not going to ensure something they know will be sunk. And if there's one thing we can absolutely guarantee is that anything that tries

to go through those straits that the Iranians don't want to go through will in fact be sunk. They have extensive weapon systems, missiles dug into the cliffs, ready to go in, ready to go out and sink whatever is threatening the integrity of the Gulf. So, I I I I just don't see how he's going to achieve what he wants by simply doubling down on what I think is already a failed strategy, especially since it's not necessary for us. Uh, Secretary Hicks this morning also commented on that. But for all of his declaration and all of

his, you know, tough rhetoric and stuff, this sounds kind of soft and tepid to me on Hormuz. What do you think? He takes very seriously the condition of that straits. We have capabilities that no other nation on earth has and we're certainly working with our energy Partners across the administration to control for that. That's part of that scoping of this. The the world needs to understand this doesn't have this isn't intended to be nor is it something that will expand. We know exactly what we're attempting to achieve here scoped properly and the American people can

count on that for sure. Do you think really that we know what we're doing and scoped properly? We can count on that. What say you Doug? Well, I've never heard of a war that was carefully scoped. And if you go back to 1965 and come forward, uh, we have scoped wars, as he says. In other words, we've imposed limitations on ourselves or we've tried to emphasize one thing or the other. But with the exception of Desert Storm, where we employed a very large ground force that could have easily crossed the river and marched on Baghdad

had it wanted to, we haven't had much success. uh you can blow things up and and again explosions on the ground. Uh what are how do I put this? They're very seductive. You see the giant explosion and you're absolutely convinced that what you did made a difference. Uh that's not necessarily true. The other thing is this has become extraordinarily expensive. I think it was uh $5.4 billion were spent just in the first 24 to 36 hours. uh thanks to the intensity of our air strikes and our use of all these precision guided weapons. The Kosovo

air campaign which lasted 78 days back in 1999 only cost at the time $4 billion did $6 billion worth of damage but it only cost us4 billion. What is this costing? Do some work with adjusting dollars and if you keep this up I don't know that $50 billion as a supplement will be enough to cover it all. And again, why are we doing this? What is this going to do for us? How is our security enhanced? It's not. We're making enemies everywhere, you know, at a very high rate of speed. And and let's just take

a look at what the options are for President Trump because obviously this is having he's got to he's President Trump clearly feels the pressure. He's got to get that straight back open. He's got to get the oil flowing because of the ramifications that has domestically on his electoral chances coming into the midterm. He talked about that yesterday, too, with Republicans about their strategy going into the midterms, which didn't include uh a lot of higher priced oil. So, what's he going to do? Now, there are also those and and I I I this is an American

we're about to show you here, but I really think uh this is more like on the Israeli side about not getting weak need and not stopping this war because Trump talking about this is going to be over soon and we're winning anyway and Seth saying that at the top here. I think that there are those in Israel who were afraid, hang on, I don't want you guys to get we need come to an end like you did 12 days into the the last war here. And here is Jack Keane warning against stopping the war. Are

we really saying that we cannot accept several weeks of oil prices maybe being higher than what they should be to take Iran off the map as a predator in the Middle East for for decades to come? Is that what we're really saying? That we're so preoccupied with that that we're not willing to make that kind of a sacrifice here? I think not. I mean, I think we got to open our eyes, get a little cleareyed about what is really happening here. And if we fall prey to uh walking away on this prematurely over oil prices,

we've just given Iran a win. They they certainly want that. Well, that's a great point. I think we're much tougher than that. Yeah, I don't know about tougher, but let's look at the premise of what he's saying, Doug. And that militarily, he's saying, are we going to walk away from a chance to take Iran off the map? So that's saying that with the naval and air power we have arrayed throughout the region, we can if we just keep going, take them off the map with no ground force, nobody on the ground at all. Is that

really possible? Uh I've said from the very beginning that we have enough firepower in the air force and the navy to destroy Iran. I don't think there's any question about that. You can destroy everything. If it doesn't move, if it's a building, if it sits still, you can strike it. And that's the kind of thing that the airmen become uh involved with. They start running out of militarily attainable objectives and so they just destroy everything that's in sight. Yeah, I think we can do that. Now, will that cause the disintegration of Iranian society? Will that

cause the state itself to collapse, which seems to be the underlying hope, if not assumption? I don't know. I don't think so. And I don't think that the world week after week after week will stand by and watch And do nothing. That's that's been my contention from the beginning because it was always clear to me this was never going to be over in a few days. It's going to take time. And I don't think we're going to get what we want because remember how does Iran win? It survives. So effectively what General Keane is insisting

is we can exterminate this country. In other words, we can kill enough people, do enough damage that Iran as a nation state no longer exists. And he equates that with success and he sees that as a positive development for the world. I don't I never have not interested in seeing any country anywhere in the world destroyed for vanity or for any other purpose or for Israel's interest or anyone else's because we have no interest in that. We we really don't. We're not interested in the damage we're doing to ourselves economically and financially. And that damage

has just begun. That's the point that we've been trying to get across to people. Eventually, it'll hit. You know, the the guy that uh comes home at night and says, "I'm going down to the 7-Eleven, get a six-pack of beer and a pack of cigarettes, and then I'll be back and watch the game." His life is going to be disrupted. Not the billionaires. We know the billionaires will go on being billionaires, but his life, the average America's life will be disrupted. So, no, I I think it's a it's a terrible goal. It doesn't make military

sense. It's not politically useful to us or economically useful to anybody. But that that's where we're headed. So, let me let me ask you what the consequence of that. Let's say that that President Trump listened to that and he does listen to Jack King. There's no question about it. Let's say that he listened to it. He said, "All right, now my knees are strengthened up. Sure, we're not going to go with this. We're going to leave the hormones until we can force the thing open, whether it's by escorting shifts and all the common drama that

would take, but eventually we could probably blow up enough of those things to get it open theoretically. But if they succeeded then at doing what you suggested and literally blew up everything, what would that do? Number one, that would take an enormous amount of time in this massive country, four times bigger than Iraq. And what would that do to our arsenals at home? because we would have to bring it down way below red levels that would make us at risk everywhere else. How how does that work to the tradeoffs? Well, if you're Trump, you're telling

yourself, I've used military power to remove access to Venezuelan oil for China. And I'm stealing Venezuelan oil and selling it at a profit for the United States. And that's a good thing. Now, we don't control Venezuela. We don't rule the place. The government is not responding to us at all. It's simply going along with unfortunately what it cannot reverse and that is the exploitation of their oil resources at least temporarily or for the moment by the United States. And this this is seen as a good thing because it reduces China's access to cheap energy. That's

step number one for the for the White House. The second is impose 10% global tariffs to fund domestic AI rare earth element infrastructure and protect US markets. We're trying to do that because we forget that AI demands enormous enormous energy and the administration wants to fund that with uh natural gas. And that brings you to the third step and that is you turn to Russia and you say all right uh we'll remove sanctions in exchange for a trade deal that secures minerals and energy and we'll unplug from unplug you from the Russia China Iran axis.

Now what what happens after 80 to 100 days and China decides to retaliate? Uh, you know, in other words, it says, uh, I'm not going to put up with this anymore. You want a war, we'll give you a war. And what makes anyone think that Russia is going to walk away from its ally in Beijing? I don't see that happening. So, I think that this broad strategy that is animating Trump is going to fail miserably. It's going to drive everybody away from us. It's not going to bring anybody to us. And let's take a look

at that since you've mentioned Russia a couple of times now before Trump made those comments that we have showed you a clip from yesterday. He got on the phone with Vladimir Putin and according to uh Pescov this morning in the Russian media He's explaining what what has happened and he said at the moment Pescov said there is no such opportunity to quickly end the war uh to specify that there are no such intentions. These proposals were conveyed by the president to his interlocutor. Let's see how the approval process will go further. Uh but Putin's proposals

to end the conflict in the Middle East are still on the table. Russia is ready to contribute to the peace process, but coordination with many parties is necessary. So Putin has some ideas to end the war, but apparently those did not go over well with Trump because he didn't say anything on them. U but then this is important too after that conversation with with President Trump, Putin came out and made his own comments about the straight of hormones. Let me remind you that last year about onethird of the world's seaborn oil exports passed through the

straight of Hormuz and that is around 14 million barrels per day. Of these about 80% were headed to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region. Now this route is effectively closed. Oil production that is tied to the use of the straight risk coming to a complete standstill as early as the coming month. At the same time, I want to remind you that the countries of the European Union plan to introduce additional restrictions on the purchase of Russian hydrocarbons starting April 25th, including liqufied natural gas, up to a total ban on such supplies in 2027. In this

regard, the government has already been set the task of assessing the possibility and expediency of terminating the supplies of our energy resources to the European market. We should not to wait until the door is demonstratively slammed in our faces, But to do it right now and move these volumes away from the European market to more interesting directions well and to gain a foothold there, which is the most important thing. So it sounds to me like Russia is looking to take an opportunity here to exploit the situation by saying, "Hey, we're going to chase this moment

to stop on our time schedule the oil supplies that were going to Europe, which in exist addition to the eur the Middle Eastern problem with fuel for the global commodity is going to put even more pressure on the western economy and the western countries. What do you think his intent is here?" Oh, I think his intent is to make life miserable for Europe and the United States. And if you were in his position, why would you not do that? I mean, after all, we're the ones that have imposed all these punishing uh sanctions and uh

he's he's simply paying us back for what we've done to him in the past. I don't think there's any news there. What I thought was interesting or what I expected that President Trump might do is uh offer a strategic bargain to Putin and say, "Look, we'll we'll pull out of Ukraine. We'll get all of our our advisors, all of our equipment, uh, everyone in and out of uniform out of Ukraine. We will stop supplying Ukraine. We will not provide any more money. We won't provide any more equipment. And, Uh, that's number one step. And and

number two is we'll meet with you. We'll put a map on the table and we'll decide how to how to divide this child once and for all. Now, if he'd said that to President Putin, that would have been very attractive. I don't think that that would have persuaded him to abandon China. I don't think Russia will abandon China because it makes too much sense for the Russians to do business with China. China is right next door and it's their principal consumer of everything they produce. But uh that could have uh s sensationally I would say

changed the balance of power because then there would have been a greater incentive for Putin to compromise potentially in the Middle East on some of his aims which all of which we do not know that didn't happen Dan. So how do you how do you persuade someone to cooperate with you if you give absolutely nothing up? you know, he's allowed uh sanctions on Russian oil to be lifted. Uh this is supposed to be temporary to help people that need it. It's too late. That doesn't make any damn difference at this point. The for the rest

of the world, they're all headed on a fast train down into the abyss. We just happen to be on the train behind them. It'll take us a little longer to get there, but we'll get there. And the Russians aren't interested in that. Well, you know, all of this is going to depend on how this this dynamic at I mean, whether you're talking China, Whether you're talking Europe, it's the global economy, American economy, everything hinges on what happens right now in the Gulf, especially between United States and Iran. And let's take a look now at the

Iranian perspective because uh uh foreign minister Abbas Iraqi was asked yesterday, what is your intent on this oil? Is this a weapon you're using or is it something you're trying to get rid of? Watch his answer. Is limiting oil supply part of your strategy here. Well, actually uh this is a war imposed on us and what we are doing is only defending ourselves. We are facing an act of aggression which is absolutely illegal and what we are doing is is the act of self-defense which is legal and legitimate. Uh well uh we have already warned

every everybody in the region that if the US attack us since uh we cannot reach the the American soil we have to attack their uh bases in the region their facilities their installations their assets and as a result the the war would be spread into the whole region. So this is the consequences the consequence of the US aggression against us. So he's saying yeah that is exactly what we're doing. So he they have a very clear understanding and their uh one of their IRGC leaders this morning just just flat out said we will continue to

destroy anybody who goes tries to go through the the straight without our permission to keep that prohibition in Place here. So if Jack Keane gets his way and we just continue bombing and the the Iranians say we're going to continue keeping it blocked off because that's part of our strategy. Who bleaks first? Well, he's uh General Keane is essentially saying that we are going to destroy the global economy and we're arguing that the effects on us are going to be minimal and so we just need to stay the course to hell with the rest of

the world. I don't think that's going to go down very well, especially for the people who are at least in theory allied with us in Europe because they're among the the people who are most likely to suffer. So, you know, I I don't the the logic escapes me. Uh we are treating Iran as though it is some sort of basillus, a violent and dangerous disease that has to be killed and cut out even if the patient dies in the process. I don't think that's a good answer, Dan. And so, where do we go from here?

because uh the and I want to play one more sound bite from uh the sec secretary hexet. In fact, actually Gary, if you can first put that true social from Trump up last night because there's something that's important there further down that I want to talk about. Uh and and Trump was saying last night, not Just he was warning about the the straight of hormuz, but he also was warning that uh 20 times greater firepower is coming if you don't open this thing up there. Uh let's see. I think yeah, we got that. see is

it 20 times harder than they've been hit thus far. Additionally, we'll take out additional deployable or destroyable targets that will make it impossible for Iran to ever rebuild back as a nation. Today, Secretary Hegsth said this. He takes very seriously the condition of that straits. We have capabilities. Today will be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran. the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes, intelligence more refined and better than ever. So that's on one hand. On the other hand, the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest number of

missiles they've been capable of firing yet. Just the bifurcation, just the trend lines that we talked about on our first briefing. So a couple of days ago, Trump said something on social media. Then allegedly we had the biggest strike that we' had. Now here he says it 20 times bigger and something much much bigger is coming. What is going to be the cumulative effect on this? Is is it does it matter if it's 40 times bigger? Are we going to be able to bring them to their knees anytime soon? And if we're not, what is

that going to do to our side if we keep expending that kind of ordinance, but it doesn't translate to any action on the ground? Well, the last time uh these kinds of comments were made, the Iranians responded with enormous ballistic missile strikes on Israel along with large numbers of unmanned systems or drones. And not only did they attack Israel, they attacked uh locations in the in the Gulf and more American military bases. So, I think that's what will happen initially. The Iranians will strike back with larger and and more capable explosives on missiles. I would

say the following. First of all, if you need medication of any kind, you better go out and buy all the medicines you can get because in a few months they won't be available because the petroleum industry has a big role to play in in the production of pharmaceuticals. So that's my first piece of advice. Uh and secondly, start thinking in terms of storing food and any other items that you think you may need because as this war continues and it's going to continue, the impact that I talked about earlier is going to be felt here.

There is no evidence that anybody in Thrron is going to pop up on the phone, call President Trump, and say, "Oh, we're so sorry. We surrender. We'll do whatever the Israelis want us to do because that's really what it's all about. Now, We have other interests. We think we're harming China. I don't know what the Chinese will do, but I think the Chinese over the next few weeks, they're going to surprise everybody by what they may be willing to do. I don't know if the Chinese will fly some aircraft into the airspace over Iran and

essentially tell us, "Look, we've had enough. Stop." Or we'll go to war. Maybe the Russians will do something similar. Who knows? There any number of things that they could do to signal that's it. We've had it. But in the meantime, I think you just need to prepare for the worst here. And once the stock market figures out or the investors, the the people in New York that run the financial system who are largely part of the problem for us, they're going to say, "Oh my god." And you're going to watch the stock market tank. and

you're going to watch the cost of a barrel of oil go up to 200 and potentially all the way to three. Uh, and all of that is going to bring everything inside the United States to a screeching halt. Now, right now, President Trump is betting based upon what he's hearing from General Kaine and others that with enough explosives, we can win this thing. And what's the win for us? The win is Iran cries uncle. We're surrendering. You can have what you want. We've taken all that we can. We'll do what the Israelis say. I just

don't see that happening, Dan. Well, so let's let's look militarily because that's exactly exactly what I wanted to talk about here. Militarily, what is possible? Because clearly Trump believes what you just said that with enough firepower, we're going to finally bring them to their knees and they will cry uncle as you say. But let's look back at the the 2025 war. It was at 12 days. If anybody was crying uncle, it was Israel because they said, "All right, we're taking too much damage. We have to get a ceasefire. Let's go in here." Israel has Iran

this time has said, "There won't be a ceasefire in 12 days." They emphatically, categorically said that last night. But you've seen you and I saw 38 days of an air campaign in in Iraq that didn't bring them to their knees in 1991. you worked under I think it was 78 days or whatever it was in this the anti-Serb war that that never brought them to their knees the way we thought it was going to and even that was a more narrow political objective. You had World War II where both Japanese and German cities we bomb

them just almost into the stone age and that never caused the populations to surrender until a nuclear weapon was used. What can you what based on what you know here of the Iranian culture of their people of the terrain and of our bomb-making capabilities? How long could this go before we get some kind of resolution militarily? Uh I would urge one correction to what you said before we go to Iran and that is that the Imperial Japanese armed forces were very concerned about Russian intervention that could have resulted in a Germanstyle solution to Japan dividing

it in half and they knew what the Soviets had done in Eastern Europe and Germany and the Japanese weren't going to accept that and so they decided to Endure the humiliation. The the bomb itself while impressive did not impress them to the extent that we think and the really decisive factor for the emperor and the general staff at the time was the very high probability that the Soviets would invade and they didn't want the the Soviets on their soil. I think Iran looks at this as we survive, we win. The Americans are going to feel

the pain economically. We're going to try and make them feel the pain militarily. We will inflict what inflict what losses we can on them. But we have to stay the course because the very existence and survival of our country is at stake. The Turks know this and the Turks have quietly tried to provide the Iranians with assistance in terms of intelligence and information. I think the Turks and the Iranians will grow closer in the weeks and months ahead. We've already seen uh the Kurds that we tried to rope into some sort of ground attack turn

us down knowing full well they not only would they be destroyed but we would abandon them. I think more and more of the world will come to Iran's side as a result of what we're doing. We we are seen and I happen to agree with this as engaged in an injustice. And the people that are most anxious to destroy everything, unfortunately, Dan, are people of my age, people who are quote unquote boomers. And they say, "Oh, blast blast these people. Kill them all." That's the that's the answer. You know, this is something that goes back

decades to the frustration with our failure in Vietnam and the failures that we've had more recently. The answer is always kill more, destroy more. Kill more, destroy more. That's what we should have done. That's what we have to do now. We need to be more ruthless than ever. Now, I don't think that's going to happen on the US side. I think smarter people will prevail. On the other hand, in Israel, that's a very different set of circumstances. And remember that if anything, Mr. Netanyahu has demonstrated conclusively that he exercises more influence over us than we

do over him. We're doing all of this at his insistence. And we can go back and talk about the Zionist billionaires in the United States that effectively purchased the Congress and control the White House. But what's really important to understand is that Israel is being pulverized. That pulverization is not going to stop. And it's important for us to understand that we've said over the last several days, several times, uh, we have hit this, we've hit that, and it's all stopped. It hasn't stopped. There is no danger of the Iranians running out of missiles. They can

replace launchers, and they can fire missiles and drones, and they will do so when it is convenient and useful for them to do so. That will continue. And that's why we get back to this question of what are we going to do on the ground? That's not going to happen. This country will not tolerate a draft. You know that as well as I do. So what does Israel do? And depending upon how desperate they are, they may decide to use a nuclear weapon against Iran. And we can only speculate what the rest of the world

will respond with if they do that. I think that at this point the administration wants very much to convince everybody that everything is just fine and this won't last much longer. No, everything is not just fine. The UAE just shut down the largest oil refinery in the world with no prospect of reopening anytime soon. You have a similar set of circumstances in Qatar. In other words, whatever you say about what you're doing to the Iranians, you have to look at the facts on the ground. Are the Iranians continuing to launch theater ballistic missiles? Yes. Are

they continuing to hit targets in Israel and around the Gulf region? Yes. We haven't even talked about eastern Iran where you have more underground missile city cities, none of which have been touched because frankly, frankly, eastern Iran is out of range for the most part of our weapon systems. So this this is not ending anytime soon. But I certainly understand why President Trump said that because he wants to reassure the markets. But eventually the markets are going to figure this out. Well, and that that's exactly where I was going to go next because that that

graphic I'm showing here, uh this is showing that uh the the Gulf nations have slashed output by 6.7 million barrels a day. That's 33% of regional production for the reason you just mentioned that the storage is full uh And that they can't uh they can't bring any more out of the ground. But just for everybody's understanding, the the the way this works is that the system is designed to not have war. So that when they pump stuff out, they put it in a holding tanks for a while, the ships come in empty, they fill them

up, they roll out, and it's just this non-stop whatever 15, 20 million barrels per day. Well, if all of a sudden you shut down the straight, then there's nothing to offload and those storage tanks are not made to go for a long period of time. So now the only thing left is to shut down production and that's going to have longer effects even after the straight gets opened up. But right now Doug, I haven't seen any evidence that it's going to be. No. The first thing we need to to keep in mind is that roughly

25% of the world's oil is now offline. That's a quarter of the world's oil supply. Now that is offline not for a few days or for a few weeks. In some cases, it's indefinite. So, that's the first thing. 35% of the world's fertilizer is now no longer being shipped. And that too is is a vital uh aspect of our lives that we don't pay a great deal of attention to. You know, natural gas fuels over 40% of US power. Higher gas prices lead to immediate utility bill increases for consumers. So, what's this mean? US manufacturers

of fertilizers and chemicals face higher feed stock costs. It eventually we're going to see the price of food and consumer goods rise dramatically. And what about monetary policy? Persistent energydriven inflation could prevent the Federal Reserve from cutting any interest rates as they previously planned in 2026. So when you when you go to regions of the world, you look at a place like Europe, you know, we went into March 2026 with a very low inventory compared with previous years, roughly 46 billion cubic meters of liqufied natural gas or liqufied gas and uh uh global gas. So

at the end of February compared to 60 billion cuban meter cubic meters in 2025 we have 46 billion. So by February 28th there were reports coming in indicating that LG liqufied natural gas specific storage fell below 30% capacity. In Asia the demand rate remains extraordinarily high particularly in China and India. Each of those countries depends upon 50% of their oil from the Gulf. And even though uh Iran has said if it's a Chinese or Indian ship, you get to go through the Gulf. Well, if you're if you're not refining anything, if you're not extracting anything,

if you can't store anything, what does that say about the global supply outlook? So we expected that there would be in 2026 a projected rise of say 7% in global LNG Supplies the fastest growth since 2019 driven by new projects in the United States Canada and Qatar now that's gone that's out and everyone is feeling the squeeze you just go down the list 100 day buffer as of 2026 China holds 104 to 115 days of net import cover in its strategic petroleum reserve targeting the shadow supply. Well, by capturing Maduro and Venezuela and striking Iran,

the US has taken has effectively shut down the two primary sources of discounted oil that China used. The result, China is now forced to buy more expensive, transparently traded oil from the global market, rapidly depleting its cheap reserves. You know, I guess what I'm trying to get across is we are not feeling the profound impact as quickly as the rest of the world, but it's going to catch up with us. It's going to catch up with us. And you mentioned you mentioned a second ago, Doug, that that uh President Trump has got to be keenly

sharply aware of this because that's something he actually has always paid attention to. But he's also trying to calm markets here or he was last night trying to do exactly that by trying to say this whole oil thing not a big deal for us. It affects other countries much more than it does the United States doesn't really affect us. We have so much oil. We have tremendous oil and gas much more than we need. We have Venezuela now as our new partner, great partner. And it's a massive source of oil, gas, everything. We're in a

very good position but very unfair to other parts of the world like China as an example. I mean we're doing This for the other parts of the world including countries like China and we're protecting the the world from what these lunatics are trying to do. Now I wonder if you could talk about that Doug because obviously we do have plenty of domestic oil but oil is a global commodity which still affects our in our economy. I wonder if you could explain what the risks are for us. Well, I think the first thing to understand is

that uh inflation is going to catch up with us and electricity costs are going to rise. Industrial goods will become more expensive and our monetary policy is going to be constrained. You can't cut interest rates in the current setting, current environment. So I think those three things, electricity costs, industrial goods, monetary policy, all of those will affect us negatively. Now, that may not be felt uh by the middle of April, but I suspect you'll start feeling it by then. But certainly by the time the summer hits, it's going to get ugly. And this is something

that's going to hurt us badly as a country through the summer and will have profound consequences for the president. Now, when you go overseas, of course, the global economy and and recession are not going to make us make friends for us. And I think the pressure on us to end this, whatever it takes for us to end this, will be enormous. Now, when I say whatever it takes, I'm not talking about a nuclear weapon for God's sakes. What I'm saying is that people will say this has got to stop. And if you're desperate uh because

of the impact of all of this, then you may be willing to weigh in on the side of Iran, which I think is going to happen, frankly, particularly when it comes to the Chinese and the Russians. And in fact, that's actually what I want to talk about next. Uh because uh first of all, despite Trump's calm words there to try and make the markets calm, that can work on just American Joe Q public that watches on TV. It's not going to work for the people who really understand what's going on. But I think Trump's real

uh terrifying and fear of all what's going on and his anger really showed up after he made those comments when he posted this on Truth Social to where he's uh just really just kind of going over the top to warn Iran and anyone else that if Iran does anything that stops the flow of oil within the straight of Hormuz, which as you pointed out is already the case, they will be hit harder by the United States 20 times harder than they've been hit thus far. Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make

it virtually impossible for Rand to ever be rebuilt back as a nation. And then he goes on to talk about that and you know, we better keep the straight of Hormuz open. This tells me that he is aware of how critical this is and he's trying to use words to coersse the opening of the straight. But the question is, will that work? Is that going to coers Iran to open the straits? No, not at all. In fact, right now, I think from the Iranian perspective, they are being told either you submit unconditionally to what the

Israelis demand. That's important to understand because the demands that President Trump has been making are not his. They never were. They are Israeli demands. So, what are they? No enrichment of any kind. You Effectively have to dismantle your ballistic missile inventory so that you can pose no threat under any circumstances to Israel and you can't have any friends or allies in the region with whom you cooperate. The is the Iranians are not going to do that. They're not going to surrender and they know what surrender means. So, frankly speaking, I think they're in the mode

of it's better to live on your knees and die standing up. So I I don't see any evidence that what President Trump is saying will happen. The other point is that he was complaining earlier that uh these ship captains that are responsible for these tankers are gutless. Why doesn't someone try to force their way through the straits of Horus? I guess he doesn't understand the insurance industry. You can't ensure anything that tries to go through the straits. They're they're not going to ensure something they know will be sunk. And if there's one thing we can

absolutely guarantee is that anything that tries to go through those straits that the Iranians don't want to go through will in fact be sunk. They have extensive weapon systems, missiles dug into the cliffs, ready to go in, ready to go out and sink whatever is threatening the integrity of the Gulf. So, I I I I just don't see how he's going to achieve what he wants by simply doubling down on what I think is already a failed strategy, especially since it's not necessary for us. Uh, Secretary Hicks this morning also commented on that. But for

all of his declaration and all of his, you know, Tough rhetoric and stuff, this sounds kind of soft and tepid to me on Hormuz. What do you think? He takes very seriously the condition of that straits. We have capabilities that no other nation on earth has and we're certainly working with our energy partners across the administration to control for that. That's part of that scoping of this. The the world needs to understand this doesn't have this isn't intended to be nor is it something that will expand. We know exactly what we're attempting to achieve here

scoped properly and the American people can count on that for sure. Do you think really that we know what we're doing and scoped properly? We can count on that. What say you Doug? Well, I've never heard of a war that was carefully scoped. And if you go back to 1965 and come forward, uh, we have scoped wars, as he says. In other words, we've imposed limitations on ourselves or we've tried to emphasize one thing or the other. But with the exception of Desert Storm, where we employed a very large ground force that could have easily

crossed the river and marched on Baghdad had it wanted to, we haven't had much success. uh you can blow things up and and again explosions on the ground. Uh what are how do I put this? They're very seductive. You see the giant explosion and you're absolutely convinced that what you did made a difference. Uh that's not necessarily true. The other thing is this has become extraordinarily expensive. I think it was uh $5.4 billion were spent just in the first 24 to 36 hours. uh thanks to The intensity of our air strikes and our use of

all these precision guided weapons. The Kosovo air campaign which lasted 78 days back in 1999 only cost at the time $4 billion did $6 billion worth of damage but it only cost us4 billion. What is this costing? Do some work with adjusting dollars and if you keep this up I don't know that $50 billion as a supplement will be enough to cover it all. And again, why are we doing this? What is this going to do for us? How is our security enhanced? It's not. We're making enemies everywhere, you know, at a very high rate

of speed. And and let's just take a look at what the options are for President Trump because obviously this is having he's got to he's President Trump clearly feels the pressure. He's got to get that straight back open. He's got to get the oil flowing because of the ramifications that has domestically on his electoral chances coming into the midterm. He talked about that yesterday, too, with Republicans about their strategy going into the midterms, which didn't include uh a lot of higher priced oil. So, what's he going to do? Now, there are also those and and

I I I this is an American we're about to show you here, but I really think uh this is more like on the Israeli side about not getting weak need and not stopping this war because Trump talking about this is going to be over soon and we're winning anyway and Seth saying that at the top here. I think that there are those in Israel who were afraid, hang on, I don't want you guys to get we need come to an end like you did 12 days into the the last war here. And here is Jack

Keane warning against stopping the war. Are we really saying that we cannot accept several weeks of oil prices maybe being higher than what they should be to take Iran off the map as a predator in the Middle East for for decades to come? Is that what we're really saying? That we're so preoccupied with that that we're not willing to make that kind of a sacrifice here? I think not. I mean, I think we got to open our eyes, get a little cleareyed about what is really happening here. And if we fall prey to uh walking

away on this prematurely over oil prices, we've just given Iran a win. They they certainly want that. Well, that's a great point. I think we're much tougher than that. Yeah, I don't know about tougher, but let's look at the premise of what he's saying, Doug. And that militarily, he's saying, are we going to walk away from a chance to take Iran off the map? So that's saying that with the naval and air power we have arrayed throughout the region, we can if we just keep going, take them off the map with no ground force, nobody

on the ground at all. Is that really possible? Uh I've said from the very beginning that we have enough firepower in the air force and the navy to destroy Iran. I don't think there's any question about that. You can destroy everything. If it doesn't move, if it's a building, if it sits still, you can strike it. And that's the kind of thing that the airmen become uh involved with. They start running out of militarily attainable objectives and so they just destroy everything that's in sight. Yeah, I think we can do that. Now, will that cause

the disintegration of Iranian Society? Will that cause the state itself to collapse, which seems to be the underlying hope, if not assumption? I don't know. I don't think so. And I don't think that the world week after week after week will stand by and watch and do nothing. That's that's been my contention from the beginning because it was always clear to me this was never going to be over in a few days. It's going to take time. And I don't think we're going to get what we want because remember how does Iran win? It survives.

So effectively what General Keane is insisting is we can exterminate this country. In other words, we can kill enough people, do enough damage that Iran as a nation state no longer exists. And he equates that with success and he sees that as a positive development for the world. I don't I never have not interested in seeing any country anywhere in the world destroyed for vanity or for any other purpose or for Israel's interest or anyone else's because we have no interest in that. We we really don't. We're not interested in the damage we're doing to

ourselves economically and financially. And that damage has just begun. That's the point that we've been trying to get across to people. Eventually, it'll hit. You know, the the guy that uh comes home at night and says, "I'm going down to the 7-Eleven, get a six-pack of beer and a pack of cigarettes, and then I'll be back and watch the game." His life is going to be disrupted. Not the billionaires. We know the billionaires will go on being billionaires, but his life, the average America's life will be disrupted. So, no, I I think it's a it's

A terrible goal. It doesn't make military sense. It's not politically useful to us or economically useful to anybody. But that that's where we're headed. So, let me let me ask you what the consequence of that. Let's say that that President Trump listened to that and he does listen to Jack King. There's no question about it. Let's say that he listened to it. He said, "All right, now my knees are strengthened up. Sure, we're not going to go with this. We're going to leave the hormones until we can force the thing open, whether it's by escorting

shifts and all the common drama that would take, but eventually we could probably blow up enough of those things to get it open theoretically. But if they succeeded then at doing what you suggested and literally blew up everything, what would that do? Number one, that would take an enormous amount of time in this massive country, four times bigger than Iraq. And what would that do to our arsenals at home? because we would have to bring it down way below red levels that would make us at risk everywhere else. How how does that work to the

tradeoffs? Well, if you're Trump, you're telling yourself, I've used military power to remove access to Venezuelan oil for China. And I'm stealing Venezuelan oil and selling it at a profit for the United States. And that's a good thing. Now, we don't control Venezuela. We don't rule the place. The government is not responding To us at all. It's simply going along with unfortunately what it cannot reverse and that is the exploitation of their oil resources at least temporarily or for the moment by the United States. And this this is seen as a good thing because it

reduces China's access to cheap energy. That's step number one for the for the White House. The second is impose 10% global tariffs to fund domestic AI rare earth element infrastructure and protect US markets. We're trying to do that because we forget that AI demands enormous enormous energy and the administration wants to fund that with uh natural gas. And that brings you to the third step and that is you turn to Russia and you say all right uh we'll remove sanctions in exchange for a trade deal that secures minerals and energy and we'll unplug from unplug

you from the Russia China Iran axis. Now what what happens after 80 to 100 days and China decides to retaliate? Uh, you know, in other words, it says, uh, I'm not going to put up with this anymore. You want a war, we'll give you a war. And what makes anyone think that Russia is going to walk away from its ally in Beijing? I don't see that happening. So, I think that this broad strategy that is animating Trump is going to fail miserably. It's going to drive everybody away from us. It's not going to bring anybody

to us. And let's take a look at that since you've mentioned Russia a couple of times now before Trump made those comments that we have showed you a clip from yesterday. He got on the phone with Vladimir Putin and according to uh Pescov this morning in the Russian media he's explaining what what has happened and he said at the moment Pescov said there is no such opportunity to quickly end the war uh to specify that there are no such intentions. These proposals were conveyed by the president to his interlocutor. Let's see how the approval process

will go further. Uh but Putin's proposals to end the conflict in the Middle East are still on the table. Russia is ready to contribute to the peace process, but coordination with many parties is necessary. So Putin has some ideas to end the war, but apparently those did not go over well with Trump because he didn't say anything on them. U but then this is important too after that conversation with with President Trump, Putin came out and made his own comments about the straight of hormones. Let me remind you that last year about onethird of the

world's seaborn oil exports passed through the straight of Hormuz and that is around 14 million barrels per day. Of these about 80% were headed to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region. Now this route is effectively closed. Oil production that is tied to the use of the straight risk coming to a complete standstill as early as the coming month. At the same time, I want to remind you that the countries of the European Union plan to introduce additional restrictions on the purchase of Russian hydrocarbons starting April 25th, including liqufied natural gas, Up to a total ban

on such supplies in 2027. In this regard, the government has already been set the task of assessing the possibility and expediency of terminating the supplies of our energy resources to the European market. We should not to wait until the door is demonstratively slammed in our faces, but to do it right now and move these volumes away from the European market to more interesting directions well and to gain a foothold there, which is the most important thing. So it sounds to me like Russia is looking to take an opportunity here to exploit the situation by saying,

"Hey, we're going to chase this moment to stop on our time schedule the oil supplies that were going to Europe, which in exist addition to the eur the Middle Eastern problem with fuel for the global commodity is going to put even more pressure on the western economy and the western countries. What do you think his intent is here?" Oh, I think his intent is to make life miserable for Europe and the United States. And if you were in his position, why would you not do that? I mean, after all, we're the ones that have imposed

all these punishing uh sanctions and uh he's he's simply paying us back for what we've done to him in the past. I don't think there's any news there. What I thought was interesting or what I expected that President Trump might do is uh offer a strategic bargain to Putin and say, "Look, we'll we'll pull out of Ukraine. We'll get all of our our advisors, all of our equipment, uh, Everyone in and out of uniform out of Ukraine. We will stop supplying Ukraine. We will not provide any more money. We won't provide any more equipment. And,

uh, that's number one step. And and number two is we'll meet with you. We'll put a map on the table and we'll decide how to how to divide this child once and for all. Now, if he'd said that to President Putin, that would have been very attractive. I don't think that that would have persuaded him to abandon China. I don't think Russia will abandon China because it makes too much sense for the Russians to do business with China. China is right next door and it's their principal consumer of everything they produce. But uh that could

have uh s sensationally I would say changed the balance of power because then there would have been a greater incentive for Putin to compromise potentially in the Middle East on some of his aims which all of which we do not know that didn't happen Dan. So how do you how do you persuade someone to cooperate with you if you give absolutely nothing up? you know, he's allowed uh sanctions on Russian oil to be lifted. Uh this is supposed to be temporary to help people that need it. It's too late. That doesn't make any damn difference

at this point. The for the rest of the world, they're all headed on a fast train down into the abyss. We just happen to be on the train behind them. It'll take us a little longer to get there, but we'll Get there. And the Russians aren't interested in that. Well, you know, all of this is going to depend on how this this dynamic at I mean, whether you're talking China, whether you're talking Europe, it's the global economy, American economy, everything hinges on what happens right now in the Gulf, especially between United States and Iran. And

let's take a look now at the Iranian perspective because uh uh foreign minister Abbas Iraqi was asked yesterday, what is your intent on this oil? Is this a weapon you're using or is it something you're trying to get rid of? Watch his answer. Is limiting oil supply part of your strategy here. Well, actually uh this is a war imposed on us and what we are doing is only defending ourselves. We are facing an act of aggression which is absolutely illegal and what we are doing is is the act of self-defense which is legal and legitimate.

Uh well uh we have already warned every everybody in the region that if the US attack us since uh we cannot reach the the American soil we have to attack their uh bases in the region their facilities their installations their assets and as a result the the war would be spread into the whole region. So this is the consequences the consequence of the US aggression against us. So he's saying yeah that is exactly what we're doing. So he they have a very clear understanding and their uh one of their IRGC leaders this morning just just

flat out said we will continue to destroy anybody who goes tries to go through the the straight without our permission to keep that prohibition in place here. So if Jack Keane gets his way and we just continue bombing and the the Iranians say we're going to continue keeping it blocked off because that's part of our strategy. Who bleaks first? Well, he's uh General Keane is essentially saying that we are going to destroy the global economy and we're arguing that the effects on us are going to be minimal and so we just need to stay the

course to hell with the rest of the world. I don't think that's going to go down very well, especially for the people who are at least in theory allied with us in Europe because they're among the the people who are most likely to suffer. So, you know, I I don't the the logic escapes me. Uh we are treating Iran as though it is some sort of basillus, a violent and dangerous disease that has to be killed and cut out even if the patient dies in the process. I don't think that's a good answer, Dan. And

so, where do we go from here? Because uh the and I want to play one more sound bite from uh the sec secretary hexet. In fact, actually Gary, if you can first put that true social from Trump up last night because there's something that's important there further down that I want to talk about. Uh and and Trump was saying last night, not just he was warning about the the straight of hormuz, but he also was warning that uh 20 times greater firepower is coming if you don't open this thing up there. Uh let's see. I

think yeah, we got that. see is it 20 times harder than they've been hit thus far. Additionally, we'll take out additional deployable or destroyable targets that will make it impossible for Iran to ever rebuild back as a nation. Today, Secretary Hegsth said this. He takes very seriously the condition of that straits. We have capabilities. Today will be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran. the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes, intelligence more refined and better than ever. So that's on one hand. On the other hand, the last 24 hours have

seen Iran fire the lowest number of missiles they've been capable of firing yet. Just the bifurcation, just the trend lines that we talked about on our first briefing. So a couple of days ago, Trump said something on social media. Then allegedly we had the biggest strike that we' had. Now here he says it 20 times bigger and something much much bigger is coming. What is going to be the Cumulative effect on this? Is is it does it matter if it's 40 times bigger? Are we going to be able to bring them to their knees anytime

soon? And if we're not, what is that going to do to our side if we keep expending that kind of ordinance, but it doesn't translate to any action on the ground? Well, the last time uh these kinds of comments were made, the Iranians responded with enormous ballistic missile strikes on Israel along with large numbers of unmanned systems or drones. And not only did they attack Israel, they attacked uh locations in the in the Gulf and more American military bases. So, I think that's what will happen initially. The Iranians will strike back with larger and and

more capable explosives on missiles. I would say the following. First of all, if you need medication of any kind, you better go out and buy all the medicines you can get because in a few months they won't be available because the petroleum industry has a big role to play in in the production of pharmaceuticals. So that's my first piece of advice. Uh and secondly, start thinking in terms of storing food and any other items that you think you may need because as this war continues and it's going to continue, the impact that I talked about

earlier is going to be felt here. There Is no evidence that anybody in Thrron is going to pop up on the phone, call President Trump, and say, "Oh, we're so sorry. We surrender. We'll do whatever the Israelis want us to do because that's really what it's all about. Now, we have other interests. We think we're harming China. I don't know what the Chinese will do, but I think the Chinese over the next few weeks, they're going to surprise everybody by what they may be willing to do. I don't know if the Chinese will fly some

aircraft into the airspace over Iran and essentially tell us, "Look, we've had enough. Stop." Or we'll go to war. Maybe the Russians will do something similar. Who knows? There any number of things that they could do to signal that's it. We've had it. But in the meantime, I think you just need to prepare for the worst here. And once the stock market figures out or the investors, the the people in New York that run the financial system who are largely part of the problem for us, they're going to say, "Oh my god." And you're going

to watch the stock market tank. and you're going to watch the cost of a barrel of oil go up to 200 and potentially all the way to three. Uh, and all of that is going to bring everything inside the United States to a screeching halt. Now, right now, President Trump is betting based upon what he's hearing from General Kaine and others that with enough explosives, we can win this thing. And what's the win for us? The win is Iran cries uncle. We're surrendering. You can have what you want. We've taken all that we can. We'll

do what the Israelis say. I just don't see that happening, Dan. Well, so let's let's look militarily because that's exactly exactly what I wanted to talk about here. Militarily, what is possible? Because clearly Trump believes what you just said that with enough firepower, we're going to finally bring them to their knees and they will cry uncle as you say. But let's look back at the the 2025 war. It was at 12 days. If anybody was crying uncle, it was Israel because they said, "All right, we're taking too much damage. We have to get a ceasefire.

Let's go in here." Israel has Iran this time has said, "There won't be a ceasefire in 12 days." They emphatically, categorically said that last night. But you've seen you and I saw 38 days of an air campaign in in Iraq that didn't bring them to their knees in 1991. you worked under I think it was 78 days or whatever it was in this the anti-Serb war that that never brought them to their knees the way we thought it was going to and even that was a more narrow political objective. You had World War II where

both Japanese and German cities we bomb them just almost into the stone age and that never caused the populations to surrender until a nuclear weapon was used. What can you what based on what you know here of the Iranian culture of their people of the terrain and of our bomb-making capabilities? How long could this go before we get some kind of resolution militarily? Uh I would urge one correction to what you said before we go to Iran and that is that the Imperial Japanese armed Forces were very concerned about Russian intervention that could have resulted

in a Germanstyle solution to Japan dividing it in half and they knew what the Soviets had done in Eastern Europe and Germany and the Japanese weren't going to accept that and so they decided to endure the humiliation. The the bomb itself while impressive did not impress them to the extent that we think and the really decisive factor for the emperor and the general staff at the time was the very high probability that the Soviets would invade and they didn't want the the Soviets on their soil. I think Iran looks at this as we survive, we

win. The Americans are going to feel the pain economically. We're going to try and make them feel the pain militarily. We will inflict what inflict what losses we can on them. But we have to stay the course because the very existence and survival of our country is at stake. The Turks know this and the Turks have quietly tried to provide the Iranians with assistance in terms of intelligence and information. I think the Turks and the Iranians will grow closer in the weeks and months ahead. We've already seen uh the Kurds that we tried to rope

into some sort of ground attack turn us down knowing full well they not only would they be destroyed but we would abandon them. I think more and more of the world will come to Iran's side as a result of what we're doing. We we are seen and I happen to agree with this as engaged in an injustice. And the people that are most anxious to destroy everything, unfortunately, Dan, are people of my age, people who are quote unquote boomers. And they say, "Oh, blast blast these people. Kill them all." That's the that's the answer. You

know, this is something that goes back decades to the frustration with our failure in Vietnam and the failures that we've had more recently. The answer is always kill more, destroy more. Kill more, destroy more. That's what we should have done. That's what we have to do now. We need to be more ruthless than ever. Now, I don't think that's going to happen on the US side. I think smarter people will prevail. On the other hand, in Israel, that's a very different set of circumstances. And remember that if anything, Mr. Netanyahu has demonstrated conclusively that he

exercises more influence over us than we do over him. We're doing all of this at his insistence. And we can go back and talk about the Zionist billionaires in the United States that effectively purchased the Congress and control the White House. But what's really important to understand is that Israel is being pulverized. That pulverization is not going to stop. And it's important for us to understand that we've said over the last several days, several times, uh, we have hit this, we've hit that, and it's all stopped. It hasn't stopped. There is no danger of the

Iranians running out of missiles. They can replace launchers, And they can fire missiles and drones, and they will do so when it is convenient and useful for them to do so. That will continue. And that's why we get back to this question of what are we going to do on the ground? That's not going to happen. This country will not tolerate a draft. You know that as well as I do. So what does Israel do? And depending upon how desperate they are, they may decide to use a nuclear weapon against Iran. And we can only

speculate what the rest of the world will respond with if they do that.