Iran is stronger today than it was

before the [music] war started. And this

is literally the nightmare scenario that

we've been worrying [music] about. And

the reason you're having me here is

because in the next few months, the

world economic crisis is going to grow.

>> And it does appear that you've been

largely correct about what you said

would happen.

>> It's because I've been modeling the

bombing of Iran for 20 years. And I've

advised [music] every White House from

2001 to 2024 on different issues related

to conflict. And right now we're coming

into the stage [music] three prediction.

We're like on the Titanic and we're

about to hit the iceberg. [music] And

when the iceberg hits there's not enough

lifeboats for everybody. So we are

knocking on the door of the world

literally running out of oil. And then

on top of that even we have another set

of [music] problems. For example, Iran

is attacking our base in Jordan and

we're in our ninth day of bombing in a

row. And the scale of eliminating the

drone [music] and missile threat is much

bigger than people realize because they

hide those drones everywhere.

>> So, how real is the risk that US will

[music] do some kind of limited ground

operation boots on the ground in Iran?

>> It's bordering on 70% now, probably

[music] by the end of this week. But I'm

concerned about terrorist attack because

controlling pieces of homeland territory

is the biggest risk factor [music] for

suicide terrorism. So the choice is do

we have a global economic crisis,

[music] possibly a recession, possibly

worse, or do we let Iran control the

straight of hormones?

>> This is not a good place to be. So what

is the most [music] probable next thing

that you think happens?

>> I think that question, Stephen, is the

most [music] important question in the

world. And I think the answer is

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Let's get on with the show. [music]

Robert P, with everything that's going

on with Iran at the moment, the US Iran

war, and everything that I've learned

from you in the two previous

conversations we've had on the D of a

CEO, I'm guessing that you're not really

surprised by what we're seeing now. No,

I'm not. I've been modeling the bombing

of Iran for 20 years. The uh the fact is

the modeling has held up and literally

month by month by month uh when we were

first here the big surprise for most

people was that we bombed the regime in

Iran and it still stood. It survived

even though uh we killed the supreme

leader and something like 137 of their

top leaders. Think about that. So that

would be like if somebody killed our

president, his wife, the first lady,

members of the first family, half of the

cabinet, all of the leaders in the

Pentagon, all of the leaders in the CIA,

and about a third of the Congress.

That is what we did to Iran in those

opening weeks in March. And nonetheless,

that regime survived. And that was

something the modeling showed for that

20 years that was based on uh

substantial um patterns in history uh

where air power alone had never toppled

a regime going all the way back to World

War I. Most people had not really heard

that before. Many people even in the

military did not fully know how much

President Trump went up against the

weight of history. Then we shifted. We

shifted to uh six weeks of a bombing

campaign. And then what did we do? we

shifted over to a two-month blockade.

Well, that was another version of

punishment. So, the US said that they

were going to block the straight of

Hormuse, basically trying to take

control of it themselves and therefore

kind of punishing the rest of the world.

>> U well, they they didn't want to punish

the world. What they were that did

happen, but what they wanted to do was

punish Iran. So, they were trying to

coers Iran to get the government to

surrender control of Hormuz. So keep in

mind what happened is on February 28th

that regime change bombing happened and

it went on for a few days but by March

2nd March 3rd Iran controlled Hormuz

literally within a few days the ships

stopped cold and they basically have not

reopened except for teenytiny periods of

time in a small in a modest way and then

you're stuck. How do you get Iran to

give up control of Hormuz or do you let

Iran continue to uh control Hormuz for

as far as the eye can see? That's been

the dilemma we've been in, Stephen,

since really the first week in March.

And now it's become clearer to the world

that has the core dilemma. We're at a

fork in the road. Either we physically

take hormones back all those other

tactou didn't work. didn't get

>> theou

>> uh the memorandum of understanding

>> which was the I sat here with JD Vance

and he told me that they were about to

sign an agreement with Iran to

ultimately end the war and they had that

agreement.

>> Yeah.

>> JD told me that it was about to be

signed. Couple weeks later here we are.

They're back to bombing each other.

>> Yeah. There's really two big issues with

this Stephen with theou

the memorandum of understanding. Um, I

do believe that uh uh Vice President

Vance sincerely thought it was going to

uh had a good chance of ending the war.

Uh, but there's a big problem here,

Stephen, which is when you listen to

Vice President Vance, he approached this

as a business deal. So, he kept talking

about all the benefits that were going

to come to Iran if they performed a fee

for service. We want the straight open

and we're going to offer you money in

different ways if you will open the

straight. Well, this is just a

fundamental misunderstanding of

international politics. This may work

great in real estate. I'm not saying it

doesn't, but in a ma major war like

this, what's at stake is the balance of

power. The balance of power. Now, I want

to explain that before the war, before

the war started, there was a balance of

power where America was ascended. Israel

was the rising power and Iran was

actually the declining power in the

region. What happened almost within

again two weeks of the war starting is

the balance of power was shifting

dramatically when Iran became in control

of form. This represents tremendous

power in the future. that wealth, all of

the potential that uh even though it

hadn't been realized yet, equates to not

just money to put in coffers, but it

equates to military power. It equates to

the ability to influence other states in

the region to build a sphere of

influence. This is power in terms of

major power politics that was shifting

here. And so with theou as uh you look

at theou JD Vance appears we could just

look at it he appears to have thought

this was a business deal. So he appears

to have thought we're going to hold up

the uh promise of say $300 billion it

will eventually fall on you if you will

just to agree to do what we want and

behave. Those aren't the clauses that

matter to Iran. The clauses that

mattered to Iran were the clauses which

directly relate to the balance of power

in solidifying Iran

uh its control of Hormuz and essentially

thisou is fundamentally a road map to

Iran becoming the regional hegeimon.

>> Heggeimon what does that mean?

>> The most dominant state in the Persian

Gulf in the Middle East. Wait, so you're

saying that this agreement would make

them the most dominant state in the

Middle East?

>> Absolutely.

>> So why wouldn't they sign it within a

heartbeat?

>> They did. They did. Iran sign. In fact,

most of these points were exactly the

points that President Trump said he

would never sign in April when Iran

presented the initial 14-point plan in

April. And the key back at war then?

Well, well, let me just explain the key

the key things that happened here is

that number one, notice in article five,

it says that Iran will make the

arrangements uh with Hormuz, that is the

ships with Hormuz and it will not charge

for 60 days. It doesn't say it will

never charge. It says only 60 days. So,

think about that. That this is already

it written into the agreement that

President Trump is signing. And then if

you say, well, what's going to happen

down the road? It's going to be Iran and

Oman who are going to determine the

future fees. There's no mention here of

the United States. There's no clause to

even let the United States wiggle itself

in. This is a perfectly clearly written

clause. And this basically gives Iran

control of the straight of Hormuz and

also of the the the discretion to set

the fees for as far as the I can see

with no constraint whatsoever.

>> How do we know that this is the actual

document?

>> Because both the Iranian government and

the White House put out exactly the same

document word for word um so that we can

actually compare them literally word for

word. So this is exactly the document

that President Trump signed. There's no

question that uh we have like an earlier

draft. Now, there were some earlier

drafts leaked by Bloomberg. That's not

what this is. This is the final one. But

let me go a little bit further here,

Steve. So, here we're talking about the

strategic base of Iran. And keep in

mind, controlling hormuz means

controlling 20% of the world's oil.

That's a fantastic amount of wealth and

strategic power to build on in the

future. No limit says that nothing about

you can't spend it on missiles, anything

else. But up here with Lebanon, the

first article. So here,

>> so when you say article, this document

contains 10, is it 10?

>> 14 different points. And when you say

>> 14 different points and there's three

points that are really the critical

action points that matter here. this

promise of $300 billion dollars down the

road, this is so far, you know, th this

is like holding out um uh funny money to

the Iranians. These are the things that

are actually short-term because this is

happening now.

>> So, point one, you're saying

>> point one I want to come back to,

Stephen, because I want to explain this

is Iran's strategic base.

>> Point number five,

>> point number five. But what happens to

become the dominant power in the region?

You need more than a strategic base. You

want a sphere of influence. You want a

sphere of influence here. And can I just

can we so I'll hold this up here. Is

that

>> Yeah, that's good. That's good. Point

number five is controlling the straight

of Hormuz. But many of uh the different

countries including Saudi Arabia. You

have already started to have pipelines

to bypass the straight of Hormos. There

were plans to do this for years. They

were too expensive. But almost

immediately uh they started to do that.

So the Saudi Saudi Arabia started to put

out four to five million barrels of oil

a day starting in mid-March uh into the

Red Sea on a pipeline that had already

been built and hadn't been used. There's

a a little area here called Fujyra which

is where the UAE had a pipeline that's

almost 2 million barrels a day. So 20

million barrels a day were going through

Hormuz almost immediately 7 million were

being bypassed. Then there's all this

discussion that Iraq might build some

pipelines. There might be other

pipelines here going through Syria. So

what if you're Iran, you now control

this. But notice it's a declining asset

that way. If you only control Hormuz

within 5 years, good chance your power

is going to be whittleled away. What you

want to do is you want a sphere of

influence. So what Iran started to talk

about is their security resistance belt

where they wanted to control and they

said from the Mediterranean

to the Red Sea to the Gulf. This was the

leaders of the Revolutionary Guard. And

why would you do that? Because you want

to prevent all of those bypasses to

Hormuz. And they're already happening.

And where's the key one? You don't you

already have the Houthies down here. You

have Hezbollah here, but you want to

make sure the Houthies are pretty secure

right here. It was

>> So, just again for the people that can't

see.

>> Yeah.

>> So, you're saying the Houthies are

pretty secure where

>> the Houthies are pretty secure down here

in Yemen. They've been fighting uh with

the Saudis for quite some time. They've

held their own. Uh we fought a war with

the the uh the Houthies in May 2025

to try to get them to uh pull back from

a temporary shutdown of the Red Sea. And

we lost essentially. Um so we couldn't

beat them. But the big one that was at

issue was uh Lebanon. And it's and my

point is it's not so much that they love

Hezbollah. They do of course they've had

long time uh decades of relationships

with Hezbollah ideologically. There's

there uh there's good reasons for that.

But there's something else that's a

power reason that's being ignored uh

here, which is you want Hezbollah to

have drones right here in Lebanon. So if

there's a pipeline that comes out here

through Syria, if you've got some other

pipelines that are coming out here,

you've got Hezbollah here that can act

as your Houthies. They can actually

attack the shipping. So now you have a

you're you're Iran. You're a major

power. You're the dominant power in the

region. You don't just control this area

here and the straight of

>> the straight of Formuz and Iran itself.

You have an arc, a security arc here

that in uh is a sphere of influence, but

it's an operational sphere of influence.

This is not just a piece of paper or

something to talk about. This is what's

guaranteeing you. You control all of

that oil whether it the oil from the

Persian Gulf comes out through Hormuz,

whether it comes out through Syria or

whether it comes out through the Red

Sea. And that's what article one is

about. So how come

>> that's what I'm saying is not when I

listen to Vice President Vance, which

I've listened to your interview and

other interviews, a super smart guy.

Okay, this is not a matter of that.

Okay. Uh but he's thinking of it as a

business deal. We want Hormuz open.

what's it going to take to pay? They're

not looking at that. They're looking at

they want to be a regional hedgeimon.

This is their roadmap and that's why

they stuck to those goals. But they

signed this document, but then the war

has kicked off anyway again because what

happened is President Trump signed the

document. He owned the document for it

for a day. He explained that he signed

the document because this was literally

four weeks ago because the world was

going to run out of oil in four weeks

and he wanted to open Hormuse. So,

President Trump saw this as a way to try

to uh open Hormuse. But what happened

immediately after President Trump signed

the document literally starting in the

next 48 hours is uh President Trump

started to and his administration

started to undermine the document

violate the clauses in that document. So

issue number one was Secretary Rubio

establishing a framework accord

agreement in Lebanon which essentially

would lock in Israel's military presence

in Lebanon as far as the eye could see.

Whereas article one in the document says

that uh the United States would

guarantee the territorial integrity of

Lebanon which I'm everybody would

realize would mean Israel is is

violating the territorial integrity of

Lebanon. It's not ensuring it. So that

would mean Israel can't be locked in

there and still be faithful to Article

One. So the framework agreement

immediately violates article one. The

second thing that happened and this

happened shortly after the framework

accord is President Trump started to

encourage uh passage through the

straight of Hormuz uh through the

southern uh there's three routes through

the straight of Hormuz. The central

route which used to be in existence the

main route before the war now that's

where the 80 mines are. So, nobody's

using the Sentra. They're either passing

through the southern avenue, which is

the one close to uh Oman, or they're

passing through the Iranian passage,

which is, of course, near the coast of

Iran. And what President Trump did is he

started to encourage this passageway

ships to um bypass or pass through

Hormuz on the southern passageway, but

with no coordination with Iran, with no

um even u often with their transponders

turned off. In fact, President Trump was

bragging about this as his secret way to

sort of uh bypass Iran's control of the

straight of form. He literally bragged

about this on multiple posts on true

social. Well, that directly uh

contravenes article 5. Um and then the

third thing that happened is if you look

at we haven't looked at article 11 but

if we look at article 11 you would see

that Iran was um uh due to have some of

its frozen asset some of its assets that

were seized by the United States and

have been held for decades unfrozen

and it and there's a specific sentence

which gives Iran the exclusive right to

determine um what's going to happen with

that money and what President Trump said

is they can have their money but only if

they give it to the farmers the US

farmers and buy American grain. That's

the third violation of theou. So what

happened here Stephen is President Trump

owned theou he and was faithful to it uh

for at least a day maybe two and this

represented a strategic defeat for the

United States. And he even explained why

he accepted that strategic defeat very

clearly and forthrightly. I call that

owning the loss. He owned the loss for

about a day or two, but then he tried to

reverse the loss almost immediately,

Stephen. And that's how we're back at

war. Because the big miscalculation that

happened in this period was assuming

that if President Trump didn't restart

the war, the war would be over. The mis

what? Who started the war? Who started

to shoot the ships in the straight of

Formuz? It was the Iranians. Why did

they do that? Because we were violating

theou, bypassing their control of the

straight of Hormuz, and that means

preventing Iran from becoming the

regional power, the rising regional

power, ultimately the regional hegeimon.

So this is why they violated. It wasn't

so much a legal understanding. This is

great power politics. Stephen, Iran

wants to be the dominant state in the

region. The United States does not want

Iran to be the dominant state in the

region. That has what is what this war

has been about since the first week in

March and now it's 5 months later and

we're still at that point.

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Thank you so much. Did Iran charge

people to go through the Straight of

Hormuse before this?

>> No, never did. Did they control the

Straight of Hormuz at all? Well, before

uh the war started, not at all. Before

the before February 28, Iran did not

control the straight of Hormuz. What

Iran did is it moved from survival to

ambition. So Iran saw there was an

opportunity with the bombing uh because

the United States had no mil we didn't

even have our navy here. There was no

means whatsoever uh to sort of offset

this this uh Iran's uh control of the

straight of hormones. Nothing at all.

Iran took this as an opportunity and the

opportunity was to seize power. So is it

fair to hypothesize that actually this

war might have strengthened Iran because

now it has this control over energy on a

global basis that it didn't have before.

>> Without a doubt. Without a doubt,

Stephen. I don't say this with any

happiness. There's really no question at

this point that Iran is stronger today

than it was before the war started on

February 28th. And that's because it

controls uh the Strait of Hormuz,

meaning that it can threaten at will

virtually any ship that goes through the

Straight of Hormuz. It's demonstrated

this over and over and over again. Even

when the ships turn off their

transponders, they are still able to

threaten ships as they go through. And

every time a ship tries to run the

gauntlet, they run into a drone, a mine,

they run into basically Iran's barrier,

and that is Iran's power.

>> There was a a tweet that went viral this

week um about this. I'm going to read

the tweet here. It says, "I'm confused.

The US has the most powerful military on

Earth. We've bombed the hell out of Iran

for 4 months. Trump says their air

force, navy, and nearly all of their

missile capabilities are destroyed. So,

how is Iran still capable of hitting US

bases right now? Because only a small

fraction of its drone arsenal is

necessary uh and missile arsenal in

order to inflict that damage. Iran

entered this war with thousands, we

think tens of thousands of drones,

missile uh ballistic missiles,

anti-shipping missiles, which are lower

sea skimming cruise missiles. Um, and

even though we have destroyed large

fractions of their uh of their missiles,

they have plenty left over to hit these

uh these targets because they're doing

saturation attacks. They're essentially

doing swarms. They're saturating our uh

our defensive capability and the the uh

the drones and missiles to get through

plenty enough to damage it to the point

we can barely use it if if if at all.

>> So is it is it mainly drones that

they're using at the moment to conduct

these attacks on the straight of Himuz

and on US bases? Uh it's been a

combination in the m in in March. It was

mostly intermediate range ballistic

missiles and then drones since about the

middle of March. Um until just quite

recently it's mostly been drones except

for Israel when Israel's been attacked.

It's it's been very heavily with

ballistic missiles. Uh but what you're

seeing now that's just in the last week

is you're starting to see the use of

ballistic missiles. You're seeing the

use of cruise missiles. These are these

sea skimming missiles here and they're

being used in against multiple targets.

So the full arsenal that Iran has the

full range of the arsenal it appears to

be fully there full stocked very well

and they're showing no signs of running

out of ammo. If anybody's running out of

ammo, it might be America running out of

interceptors to shoot things down. Um,

but we don't know that as a fact. And I

think that what you're seeing is Iran

has been highly intelligent intelligent

about how it has deployed its its

missiles. Trump said they have no navy.

It's been knocked out. They have no air

force that's been knocked out. They have

no air detection that's been knocked

out. Their radar has been knocked out.

And just about everything's been knocked

out. Virtually everything they have has

been knocked out. He said that on Truth

Social in May 2026. If everything has

been knocked out,

>> Mhm.

>> then how come there's no safe passage

through the Straight of Hermoose? How

come this weekend we saw more Americans

tragically die um because of Iranian

attacks?

>> Because what they have left we can't

knock out and is plenty to do the

damage. That's the fundamental problem.

We took out the easy stuff to hit. they

didn't need it in order to seize control

of hormones and keep hormones and start

to defend themselves against uh more

aggressive pressure. And the bottom line

is that it's it's very difficult, if not

impossible, to eliminate that

capability. We would do it in a

heartbeat if we could right away.

>> Explain to me in just simple terms why

it's so difficult to remove that

capability. You know, I was looking at

this picture here which shows the size

of a drone relative to another object.

So, I guess there was two questions

which is like where do they hide these

and how easy it is is it to make one of

these drones? So, they hide those drones

Stephen everywhere. Okay.

>> Okay. They can they're in drone caverns.

They're in warehouses.

They're everywhere. They could be. So

that drone, just to kind of give you a

sense here, would easily fit in this

room. But the reason this is so

difficult is notice how small that is

here. That that drone compared to the

scale of where it could be. And this is

what I really want to uh show you

because this is I think the hardest part

to explain to to people as I'm talking

in whatever format I'm talking is it's

the scale of eliminating the drone and

missile threat is much bigger than

people realize because they're hearing

measurements well we've destroyed x% and

y% and that's why you're getting the

question but if you look at this map

this is what they where these drones

these shah Heeds 136 could literally be

anywhere in this radius, 500 mile area.

And notice how huge this area is. This

area, this area like this is bigger than

California. It's one and a half times

the size of California.

>> So I guess it's like trying to find a

truck in California.

>> It's like trying to find a truck in

California. These little things here are

the Shahed drones. Yeah.

>> Okay. And what we're doing in this area,

which is mountainous. So, this is why we

have a a threedimensional, it's not just

a two-dimensional problem. It's a

threedimensional problem.

>> We'll show some of these uh visuals on

screen now just to show what the train

where they're hiding these drones might

be like.

>> They could be anywhere in these

mountains. There's all kinds. And if we

kind of imagine this as a visual. So

this is the general problem here we have

which is just this stuff could be

anywhere. And now these are the drones

and this is the terrain that the drones

are going to hide in. And notice I've

just sprinkled some here. But now I'm

going to cover these up with more

terrain.

And notice you can't see those drones

anymore. And now I'm going to put in

some more drones somewhere else. And now

we're going to put another layer in. And

this is this is again it's the

three-dimensional part of the problem.

Meaning hard to find from the air. Now

if I get my people out and I start going

in now, I could start to dig them out.

But let's just keep doing this for a

while. So now I'm putting in another say

20 drones. And I'm going to cover it yet

again.

And then I'm going to put in uh another

set of drones.

And I'm covering it yet again.

>> I guess you could put all the drones in

there and you you would still be able to

cover them.

>> You would. Yes. But you wouldn't do it

in You would do it in layers. So they're

going to make it so that if you find

one, you're going to have to work really

hard. You have to get them drone by

drone by drone or at least in clusters

of them.

>> I guess also an important point of

context is they're also making new ones

this whole time.

>> Exactly. So our estimates that we have

leaked from the Pentagon are in April.

That's months ago.

these drones, they're they were making u

55,000 a year and giving them to Russia.

So just think about that. That's

thousands every single month. Why

haven't they made uh another 5 or 10,000

drones since April? If you want this to

open, so let me just straight for

>> the straight of form. So now let me just

explain. So this is our problem. If you

want the straight of Formoose to open,

it's not good enough to say, "Oh, look.

I' I've found like dozens or hundreds of

these drones." You've got to persuade

the shipping companies that their ships

are safe.

They don't obey orders from the

Pentagon. You can't order the shippers

to go through

>> because the ships are expensive.

>> The ships are expensive and the crews

don't want to Oh, in the many millions.

millions and millions of dollars. I

don't know the exact amount of these uh

tankers, but each tanker will carry

between 700,000 and over a million

barrels of oil. And so they have quite a

the just and you can do the math right

there to see how much each ship is worth

carrying that much uh uh that much oil.

>> I was looking at the cost here. It says

when you combine a brand new vessel with

a full tank of oil, a sh single tank

crossing the straight of Hermuz is a

floating asset worth 300 million.

>> Oh wow. See, I didn't learn I learned

something from you every time. Um, and

>> that's not even the lives on board,

which again are going to cause an

insurance problem, but also no one wants

to people to die.

>> Well, and they don't want to die. So,

you're going to have mutants. They're

not going to. So, this is why you're

seeing more ships leaving than you're

seeing ships come in. And the ships that

are coming in are very heavily coming to

Iran's ports. That's one of the reasons

President Trump put the blockade back

on. It's because what happened here is

theou this whole idea is not opening up

the straight of hormuz it's not

preventing what's going to come in the

next few weeks maybe month which is the

world economic crisis we are knocking on

the door of what President Trump told us

he was trying to avoid which is the

world literally running out of oil and

just today before we started the

Houthies which big ally of Iran. So just

to come back here and and reshow the

map, uh remember I said that once uh the

straight of Hormuz became shut down,

there was 2 million of barrels coming

out every day through um for the UAE

coming out through Fyra and then four to

5 million uh coming out from Saudi

Arabian oil going out to the Red Sea. Uh

and this is the the port there at the

Red Sea. Well, the Houthies have just

shut this down literally today.

>> Oh, really?

>> Literally before we came on. Uh, it

happened about 6 hours ago. This has

been escalating for several weeks.

Iran's been asking for this. This is

part of the general escalation that

we're seeing.

>> Okay. So, we've got the Straight of

Hermoose closed. We've got the Houthies

closing

>> the Red Sea,

>> the Red Sea. So, there's no oil flowing

through there. Yeah.

>> So, are we on the verge of an economic

crisis if things don't change quickly?

>> Yes. Yes. This is a this is literally

the nightmare scenario that we've been

worrying about. And the reason is is

this. Go back and let's let's think

about this from the 20 million barrels

of oil that was going through the

straight of Hormuz. So when Iran gained

control of the straight of Hormuz, what

happened immediately is the uh Saudi

Arabia and the UEE started to bypass

Hormuz with 7 million barrels a day. So

that means only 13 million at issue,

right? That's a little that's helpful.

The next is the strategic petroleum

reserve, the United States. And we

started to release about five or 6

million barrels a week through the

through the strategic oil

>> when uh we started to do this. It's

right around the middle of March. I

can't remember the exact date, but

notice that you put a big dent in that.

And so that's one of the reasons the oil

markets did not go crazy right away.

>> So I've got some data here then. says,

um, President Trump authorized the

emergency release of 172 million barrels

of oil from the strategic reserve

designed to be pumped out over roughly

120 days. This wasn't just a US issue or

the US acting alone. The US draw down

was part of a massive coordinated effort

by 32 member nations of the

International Energy Agency who

collectively agreed to release 400

million barrels from their emergency

stock piles. Because these massive

releases um were done to offset the

Hormuz blockade, the US strategic

reserve has been heavily depleted. And

as of July 2026, the reserve has dropped

down to roughly 300 million barrels,

which marks the lowest level the reserve

has since 1983,

a more than 40year low. They're being

depleted. Once you spend your reserve,

you don't get it refilled. And that's

what I think President Trump was talking

about when he said we're about to run

out of oil in four weeks. That was

exactly the date because we've just run

to the date of uh that that quote. What

you just read is we're coming to about

the 120th day. And so what that means is

all of that cushion that we had in the

system to protect the ga the price of

gas already went up. Now you have even

more risk. And then on top of that,

Stephen, we have another set of problems

besides the oil itself, which is

refining capacity in the world. So we we

don't uh put crude oil in our cars. We

put gasoline in our cars. Diesel as

well. Well, how do you get the gas and

the diesel? You refine the crude. So

that means the refineries need to work.

Well, where are much of the world's

refineries? in the Persian Gulf. Not

just oil comes through the Persian Gulf,

refined product, they're called

distillates, they come through the

Persian Gulf as well. Now, so that means

you've shut down something like uh 25%

or a third of the world's refining

capacity.

Now, let's marry this to what's

happening with Russia and Ukraine's

blasting Russia refineries in Russia. So

what's happening Stephen is you are

getting not just the decline of crude

itself is about to run out but the

refining capacity now has been heavily

uh uh strained and and limited. Uh it

might be down you know 40%. I don't know

the exact number but it's something on

that order. And what you're seeing then

is what I think President Trump was

seeing a month ago, which is he wanted

the straight of form moves to open, but

he also didn't want to own the L. And

what President Trump has decided is

he'd rather take the risk with the

world's economy than own the L, own the

loss,

and maybe he'll change his mind,

>> which means he'd rather take the risk

with the world's economy than just own

the L. So what would owning the L in

this scenario? opponent the L would

allow Iran to follow through with

article 5. So if we go back to article 5

>> to control to control the straight

>> to control the strait on its terms

>> but they that would be set preceded for

all of these straits.

>> Yes.

>> Around the world that

>> that's exactly right and you can't have

that.

>> Well these are the choices we have

Stephen. So, so the choice is do we have

um uh a global economic crisis, possibly

recession, possibly worse, or do we let

Iran control the straight of foremost?

>> This is not a good place to be.

>> Well, that's the fork in the road that I

was telling you was the stage three

dilemma. So, that's exactly where we

were in Mar. So, so Stephen, just to

explain to your audience because they

were trying to figure out how are we

getting here? This is what the 20 years

of modeling was really showing. we would

very quickly get to this fork in the

road. It wouldn't take months and

months. It would happen right away. And

President Trump has been trying to avoid

the escalation trap. This is called an

escalation trap. And he's been trying to

avoid that trap. He tried to avoid it

with bombing for 6 weeks. He tried to

avoid it with the blockade. He tried

signing theou. He let JD Vance offer

money. And that that none of those were

were actually working. And what he where

he is now is still at this fork in the

road. The dilemma of the escalation

trap. Either he owns the loss which it

means everything you just said and

becomes known as the president who

allowed not just the straight of form

moves to be uh be controlled but set a

precedent for other countries and other

non-state actors to control their their

choke points. or we have the um we take

it back physically. Are we going to

physically take it back?

>> So, we'll go through the stages in the

escalation trap at straight away after

this after we move on from this point

around oil because I think some of my

audience might not know that this

escalation trap is historically

predictable and that you've been talking

about this for a long time and it also

allows us to understand exactly what

happens next. Um I was quite shocked

when you just said that Trump said

recently that the US would run out of

oil within 4 weeks. So, I did I just

looked down at some research here and it

says that during a recent press

conference at the G7 summit in June

2026, President Trump made a blunt

admission about how dangerously low

global energy oil stock piles have

become due to the ongoing crisis in the

straight of Hammoose. His direct quote

was, "We run out of reserves at about 4

weeks." You know, there are reserves all

over the world and we would run really,

really low. we would run out and

there'll be a time when you wouldn't be

able to get it. It would be bedum.

>> Yes.

>> Why is he saying that? Isn't that

because

>> doesn't that make him look bad?

>> It it makes him he's being I think

forthright in why he signed theou which

is to avoid that bedum the world

economic crisis. However,

the problem for President Trump is in

order to avoid the bedum, he has to let

Iran control the straight of H formuz,

establish that sphere of influence I was

explaining and he almost immediately

after he said that statement within 48

hours undermined thatou that would have

avoided that. Had theou just been uh

implemented as written, we may not be

sitting here today talking about the

impending world crisis. And I believe

one of the reasons we're knocking on the

door of more escalation right now is

because President Trump is desperate to

open the straight of foremost. I think

he's taking low risk uh high risk

military option mil. I think he's

pursuing military options he likely

knows are unlikely to work, but they're

his best chance to open hormuz before

the crisis literally hits.

>> But there's also another before, which

is the midterm elections.

>> Yes. Am I right in thinking that this

midterm election takes place in 3 months

time and if his approval rating is low

at that point because of what's going on

with the war because when Americans go

to the pump to fill up their cars they

notice the prices are way high higher

than usual that means those Americans in

the election in the midterm elections

will vote for the Democrats which means

he will lose the Congress. So he

basically needs to make sure Americans

are happy in three months time. He he

needs to take the best chance he can can

to make that happen. Okay. And I think

that what happened here, Stephen, is he

his quote, you just quoted him, I think

it was June 17th.

>> He's saying that within a month those

reserves are going to run out and we're

heading to that bedum that economic

crisis and that is already happening.

His s four weeks later, we're right on

that trajectory. That trajectory has not

changed. Maybe we've bought an extra

week or two of time because some oil did

get out from the from the Persian Gulf.

Not that much, but enough for a few

weeks here. So maybe it's it's going to

now not fall on August 1st. Maybe it'll

be August say 15th or 17th. But it will

hit. It's And that's what he was. And

now I think he's he sees when it hits

he's going to lose uh there's a good

chance that the Republicans will lose

more seats in the House and in the

Senate. That will make him the lamest of

lame ducks for his last two years. Uh it

may not be that he would be removed from

office. That's probably not going to

happen. But it could be that he will be

impeached again. He will be tied in

knots by the uh by the Democratic

controlled House or Democratic

controlled House and Senate. And um this

is what he's trying to offset. And but

he knows something that most of us I

think um are not really taking seriously

uh which is that the world is like we're

like on the Titanic and we're about to

hit the iceberg. And maybe that iceberg

moved a little bit further away but

we're still right on the trajectory to

hit that iceberg. And it's coming and

when the iceberg hits there's not enough

lifeboats for everybody. And who's going

to be short of lifeboats? The

Republicans. And that's what I think why

I think people made the mistake when

they said, "Well, President Trump

couldn't possibly escalate before the

midterms." Couldn't possibly for weeks,

Stephen. I've been on shows talking

about, you know, why President Trump

will escalate maybe after the midterms,

maybe next year, but he certainly and I

kept trying to explain this is not

that's probably not right. And that's

what you're seeing now. You're seeing

that that President Trump is desperate

to try to open the straight of Formos.

He's he I think is being told probably

directly from his military these options

are very low uh risk. They're very high

risk. They're very unlikely to succeed.

But now that the Titanic is going to hit

the iceberg, his only other choice is to

completely walk back and say, "You're

right, Oron. You control her moves. You

set the fees. You don't have to make any

limits on your nuclear program. You are

the fourth center of world power. And I,

Donald Trump, it happened under my

watch. That's a big L to wear on your

chest, Stephen. And that would be true,

I think, for any president. This is what

Lynden Johnson faced in Vietnam. Uh, we

now have the tapes that Johnson was

making in the White House in

conversations. It wasn't just Nixon

making tapes here. Johnson uh was making

tapes. And we now have tapes of Johnson

as he's making decisions to escalate the

Vietnam War, explaining that he knows

this is very unlikely to end the war.

It's likely to make it worse. And why is

he doing it? He's doing it because he's

trying to uh hold on to his uh Great

Society program just for another four or

five months. And what he's hoping is

that even though the escalation is

likely not to work, there's some tiny

chance it will. And in four or five

months, he'll be able to pull a rabbit

out of the hat. He became uh it failed

domestically. Lyndon Johnson had to uh

pull back from running for reelection

because of the escalations in the

Vietnam War. And President Trump is

running the same risk that even though I

believe that he's doing this because

he's trying to give him him himself and

the Republicans the best chance to win

uh in November, uh it may not work.

That's why I think President Trump

already planted the seed of uh China

meddling in the elections. he's already

started the conversation uh that um uh

that there's another possible stone

election in our future. This time

possibly uh by foreign country, possibly

China.

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See you there.

On this point of the escalation trap,

um, it has several stages to it, the

escalation trap, as far as I understand.

>> Uh, yes, I think you have the picture.

Do we have the picture? I have a I have

the escalation ladder.

>> Yeah. Yes. So, I made this I think it

was uh something like March 2nd or March

3rd.

>> Okay. So, for people that can't see the

visual, we'll also explain what we're

showing here, but we will put it on the

screen for those that can see.

>> Yeah. So, what I did um is I was um uh

trying to find a way to um graphically

show the escalation trap. And what this

looks like for those who can't see is an

upside down pyramid. So basically it

starts small at the bottom and gets

worse and worse and more and more red

and more and more red as you get through

more and more stages as you go to the

top. In the beginning you start with

limited strike. That's the bombing of

leadership bomb. You kill the leader.

You kill uh you you try to topple the

regime with leadership to uh and that

leads to retaliation. Stage two. Stage

two retaliation is Iran takes hormones

and that then leads to us doing some

retaliation. I would still call it in

stage two by the way. Um that's why I

kind of kept it the same color where

we're doing the uh six weeks bombing.

That's also where the blockade is. And

notice then you get to this red stage

here. Notice it's where economic crisis

is. This is where stage three really

starts. Okay. Now we were able to offset

that economic crisis. So when we talked

in March and April, it wasn't clear,

especially China, they were still

buying. So that economic crisis was a

lot closer in um March and April than it

became after the summit with Shei

because she stopped buying 5 million

barrels of oil a day. I want to

underscore that. And what did she get

for that? Uh President Trump last week

just blamed him for uh meddling in our

election. So I'm not sure she has

thought that was a good deal. But still,

we're at this point now, and this is

where stage three is, or the choice is

if you want to get off of the escalation

trap, you then have to let Iran become

uh the gain power, become the rising

power in the region, the regional

hegeimon, and essentially the fourth

center of world power because once it um

gains power u with Hormuz, has a sphere

of influence, a year or two from now,

Steven, they're very likely to have

nuclear weapons. So this is this this is

what it means to let Iran win. It's not

Iran will win and be nice. Iran is going

to become a very powerful state in the

region. If we go further and this we

actually uh do escalate and with the

other map I'll explain what I think the

real issues are going to be between now

and the midterms.

Then we're going to head into 2027 into

the deep red which is the actual forever

war. So many people this week and next

week they're going to I'm going to be on

a lot of shows Stephen talking about are

we in a forever war? Well, that's

coming. Okay, possibly. But right now,

we're coming into the stage three

question, which is are we going to

physically use force for the first time

for real to seize back control of at

least part of Hormuz and so forth? And

that is the big question because if we

do that and that's why I think the real

issue on the table right now is uh can

the United States physically open hormos

between now and the midterms. I think

that question, Stephen, is the most

important question in the world, for the

world, for the world's economy, for

international terrorism against

Americans, uh, for whether or not we

truly will be in a forever war. This is

going to be decided between now and the

midterms. And the and the and the key

issue is, can we physically open the

straight of form moves between now and

the midterms? And I think sadly the

answer is almost surely not.

>> It's funny because you mentioned LBJ. So

I was looking at some of his quotes

around the time to see how they link

because everybody knows the Vietnam War

as being a war that just lasted forever

and really achieved nothing. I mean

that's generally the consensus that you

read about.

>> And LBJ said at the time, I know we

ought not be there, but I can't get out.

I just can't be the architect of

surrender. And by this, he knew that the

current strategy was a mistake, but he

felt politically paralyzed because

backing down would be like a humiliating

defeat, which again links to Trump's

situation. He also said, "Let's get

somebody that wants to do something

besides drop a bomb, but that can go in

and take in after these damn fellas and

run them back where they belong." And by

that he meant relying entirely on

overwhelming American air power wasn't

actually solving the unconventional

ground level problem which again links

to Trump's situation as you've

described.

>> That's the transition from air power

rolling thunder to the heavier use of

ground forces and both of those of

course ultimately fail.

>> He also said I don't this is again LBJ's

comments as president during the Vietnam

War. I don't think that we can fight

them 10,000 mi away from home and get

anywhere in that area. It's just the

biggest damn mess that I ever saw. By

this, he meant trying to project

military power halfway across the globe

against an enemy fighting in their own

backyard is incredibly difficult and

likely futile, which again links to the

orange situation. And lastly, LBJ said,

"A man can fight if he can see daylight

down the road somewhere, but there ain't

no daylight in Vietnam. There's not a

single bit." And by this he meant that

there was no realistic achievable end

point or path to victory for its

military strategy. And that also links

to how like when political pressures

change and you know Trump's recent

admission at the G7 that the world is

about to run out of um their energy

reserves is a stark realization that the

current strategy is hard. It has a

deadline and there's no clear solution

in sight.

>> Yeah. It's so tragic. It's so tragic

that we're essentially replaying the

Vietnam War. Trump is replaying the

decisions that Lyndon Johnson made and

coming to very similar decisions, which

is he believes as Lynden Johnson did

that even though the military escalation

would be a likely loser on the on the

battlefield, that loss would take months

and months to play out. So there was

some chance he could pull a rabbit out

of a hat. But if he accepted immediate

abrupt defeat, that would totally

undermine and destroy his domestic

political agenda.

>> So, I've got I basically before you

came, I looked at the top 20 questions

that the internet currently wants to

know about the Iran war.

>> Oh, great.

>> And we've knocked off a few of them

already.

>> Okay.

>> We've got a couple of them left.

>> Yeah, I love it. Um, one of them is can

the United States actually force the

straight of Hummus fully open with our

current strategy or does Iran now hold

lasting leverage over this critical

choke point?

>> The answer is um it the United States

cannot do it and this would be an

opportunity. Stephen, could I have that

map back?

>> Let me explain. Yeah, let me let me show

you what I think is really in the offing

here.

>> So, a lot of people are wondering what

are we going to do with 8,000 ground

troops? So, we have somewhere around

4,500, 5,000 Marines, somewhere around

4,000 or so troops from the 82nd

Airborne. What are these troops actually

going to do? And I think that what

President Trump is doing here, and I

think you can really we can really see

this if I kind of explain this is what

we are doing is we are concentrating our

forces, our naval forces here into the

Gulf of Oman. We are not moving them

through the straight of Formos where con

our carriers are in the Gulf of Oman and

also our marine expeditionary unit is in

the Gulf of Oman. Now previously these

had been further away

the board in the Indian Ocean. We move

them here closer. And this is important

because these guns are are guns that

have range to be able to hit the shore

within about 12 mi. So what are you

doing with these ships? And what are you

doing here is you are building a force

that might be uh able to take a piece of

territory at Charbahar or there's a um

uh right in between Bandraas and

Charbahar there is a little port town

called Jasque and this would be exactly

the kind of armada you would build in

order to take one of those objectives.

of either Charbahar or Jaskque. And the

reason that you would do it politically

for President Trump is because this

could possibly be a symbolic victory.

You could possibly take the territory

and hold it for weeks. Now, why would

you be able to take the territory and

hold it for weeks? It's because this is

Pakistan.

We haven't even shown the rest of Iran

here. uh Tehran is is is over here. So

maybe we want to Yeah, why don't we uh

bring the other map here as well. So

what we have done, Stephen, is we have

concentrated our forces here in the Gulf

of Oman. This is our carriers, our

destroyers, our battleships, and they

can provide some air cover here for

ships that might pass through uh the

southern part here. So they I'm not

saying this is the only possible

mission. Uh, but those Marines and the

82nd Airborne, they're not helping.

They're not really there to help ships

pass through the straight of Hormuz, but

they're here. Okay. At least the Marines

are here.

>> Where?

>> Uh, we don't they're somewhere in the

straight of in the Gulf of Oman. We

don't know exactly where they are. That

would not be good.

>> You're just saying that cuz some people

can't hear.

>> Yeah, that's right. So, they're in the

Gulf of Oman uh here, which is to the

east of Hormuz. The Gulf, the Persian

Gulf is to the west of Hormuz. So Hormuz

is the true choke point between these

two Gulfs and the Gulf of Oman here is

then what's north of it is the

souththeastern coast of Iran which is

the the least populated part of Iran.

Iran's population is mostly up here

around the word Iran.

>> So you're saying that the US might take

a small part of Iran from here?

>> A small part of Iran

>> with ground troops?

>> With ground troops? That's right. and

literally hold it here uh in order to

get a symbolic victory and in order for

Iran to knock us out, they have to

redirect all of their attention to this.

Uh and this would be this is why I don't

think it's going to work because

ultimately they will do this. Uh but in

the short term in a period of say a few

weeks or so, this uh there's a there's a

chance and I say it's a low chance. I'm

not trying to tell you I would advocate

for this. I would not advocate for this.

I'm trying to explain what these troop

these forces are doing here because

otherwise there's no point in having

these forces here.

>> Okay. So, some questions on this then.

If they if the US do I guess invade Iran

from

>> capture

port little one of these port towns

>> from the sort of south east here.

>> That's right.

>> This would mean that Iran have a target

to kill American soldiers.

>> That's right. And the cost of losing

American soldiers, especially back home

in America, would be tremendous.

>> You're talking about hundreds dead over

a period of at least weeks.

>> And this would be just terrible

politically for boots to be on the

ground and be dying in Iran.

>> Well, it will be divisive politically.

So for people that are opposed to the

war, this will make them even more

opposed to the war. But for people that

are supporting the war, and this is the

part of the politics that I study,

Stephen, uh it's important to understand

that there's a large part of MAGA that

is incredibly supportive of this war. In

fact, the opinion polls uh uh tend to

show that more MAGA supports regime

change uh for Iran than oppose it. So,

this is not like MAGA has become Tucker

Carlson country or something. This is

still Trump country uh here and they

want Trump to win. Well, what you are

seeing here is that if there are if

there are troops that are killed, you

are likely going to see, and you're

seeing this on Fox News this morning

after three more died over the weekend,

you're seeing a tremendous amount of

support for our troops and therefore the

war.

>> Okay, so I've got some numbers here

>> about public support. Based on recent

polling from mid 2026, the ongoing

military conflict with Iran remains

highly unpopular with the general

American public, but support is sharply

divided along political lines. Overall,

roughly 27 to 34% of Americans support

the war, while a solid majority of 53 to

57% oppose it. But then when you look at

MAGA, it says that 77% to 85% of MAGA

support the war. There's a MAGA

Republicans and only 5% to 14% of MAGA

Republicans oppose the war.

>> That's right. So what you are seeing is

the divisions in our country which have

been building for years

are still in existence with this war and

they're becoming hardened in this war.

And if as deaths occur, this is likely

to harden the division, not shift, at

least not shift much of MAGA to the

anti-war position. And the reason is

because just as Trump complained when

President Biden pulled out from uh

Afghanistan

there, this is going to be uh not just a

loss for Trump if he pulls out. This

will be viewed as a as as an insult to

the people who died. And so people will

say, "So if we leave, did those people

die as a mistake? Was it a mistake? Is

their death were their deaths

worthless?" That's a hard thing. And

that's one of the reasons why when

troops die in war for months, this can

harden support for a war, possibly even

grow it. Over time, yes, it tends to

whittle down, but in the in the near

term, deaths can actually harden support

for the war. And that's a thing that

most people aren't really fully grasping

yet.

>> How real is the risk that the US will do

some kind of limited ground operation

with boots on the ground in Iran?

uh well over 50%. I think it's uh

bordering on 70% now. Um and the reasons

are that uh number one, the economic

crisis that President Trump was trying

to prevent and therefore the economic

costs that will hurt him later is

already starting to become baked in.

what you're hearing this morning with

the Houthis closing the pipeline area

around Yanbu, it's called this port city

in the Red Sea where the uh 4 to 5

million barrels of Saudi oil is coming

out. What you're hear what that is going

to do is make the economic crisis even

more baked in, even more likely unless

it's immediately reversed. And even if

it was immediately reversed tomorrow,

that could be reversed again the next

day after that. this is starting to

spiral out of control because it's not

just up to President Trump now to to put

this genie back in the bottle. President

Trump can actually still uh can withdraw

and uh but right now Iran has to stop

the escalation. It has to let the Red

Sea oil flow. It has to allow ships to

flow from Hormuz. And Iran is not is in

a mood for revenge. Iran is there is

emotions coursing through Iran, but it's

not um causing Iran to uh uh pull back.

Uh it's causing Iran to want revenge.

And the leader statement, the Supreme

Leader statement just of a couple days

ago, this was Saturday, uh two uh US

soldiers were tragically killed in

Jordan. Um he called it uh what the

Supreme Leader did was uh used the

phrase that he's going to deliver

unforgettable lessons to America.

Unforgettable lessons is the exact

phrase by the Supreme Leader over the

weekend. What you are seeing here,

Stephen, is as we have essentially as

Iran um started to shoot now shoot at

ships here to try to reinforce theou,

President Trump up the ante. Now we're

in our ninth week, ninth day of bombing

in a row. Now Iran is upping the Annie.

And Iran is upping the Annie in multiple

ways. It's attacking our base in Jordan,

which it only rarely done since uh since

March, actually. It's now with the

Houthis closing the Red Sea. And we

haven't yet talked about Kuwait. And we

should talk about what happened here

over the weekend here in Kuwait because

this is a harbinger of what's to come

because it shows how ferocious the anger

is by Iran and how hard it's going to be

to stop this spiral of escalation. And

that is what is one of the the that's

what's going to lead to President Trump

thinking long and hard about putting

those ground forces in because we're not

making an independent decision now.

>> So you said there's a 70% chance Yes.

>> that troops could be put on the ground

in Iran.

>> Yes. I think within I think probably uh

within the next month, maybe even

shorter than that. It could even be by

the end of this week.

This is something that I've made for

you. I've realized that the direio

audience are strivals

that we want to accomplish. And one of

the things I've learned is that when you

aim at the big big big goal, it can feel

incredibly psychologically uncomfortable

because it's kind of like being stood at

the foot of Mount Everest and looking

upwards. The way to accomplish your

goals is by breaking them down into tiny

small steps. And we call this in our

team the 1%. And actually this

philosophy is highly responsible for

much of our success here. So what we've

done so that you at home can accomplish

any big goal that you have is we've made

these 1% diaries and we released these

last year and they all sold out. So I

asked my team over and over again to

bring the diaries back but also to

introduce some new colors and to make

some minor tweaks to the diary. So now

we have a better range for you. So, if

you have a big goal in mind and you need

a framework and a process and some

motivation, then I highly recommend you

get one of these diaries before they

will sell out once again. And you can

get yours at the diary.com.

And if you want the link, the link is in

the description below.

You've shown me on the graph that you've

just shown the escalation ladder, you

can call it, and and where we are now.

What is the most probable next thing

that you think happens with this war?

The biggest thing I'm worried about is a

mass casualty attack against American

troops or American civilians.

>> Wow.

>> Against American troops in the Middle

East, but I'm specifically worrying

about a barrage of ballistic missiles

against our uh naval ships in the Gulf

of Oman. So the Iran is showing a uh

through its the targeting it's that it's

already been doing in the last uh week

and a half an exquisite ability to

precisely target and um we don't know

for sure they're able to track the

movement of our naval ships in the Gulf

of Oman uh or they're getting help with

either the ch from the Chinese or the

Russians in doing that. But I'm

specifically worried that as this

escalates, they've just closed the

straight. They've just closed the Red

Sea. If we keep going forward, and we'll

find out if we're going to if Trump will

pull back or not, but if we keep going

forward, one of the big things I'm

concerned about this week, next week,

would be an attack on a ship. Uh, and I

think it would be a barrage attack. The

second thing I'm concerned about is uh

because we are now um literally

threatening ground occupation. That's

the biggest risk factor for suicide

terrorism in my 25 years of studying

suicide attacks. We haven't talked about

that, Stephen. And the reason we haven't

talked about it is because we were

pretty far away from the big risk factor

of how you start a big suicide terrorist

campaign. That is now changing. Um I've

talked to my substack about this. glad

to talk to you about it now. Uh, but I'm

concerned about a mass casualty attack

against Americans. This could be against

an American airliner. It could be

against I mean Americans on a a

commercial airliner. This could be um

against uh uh Americans, say business uh

men in uh Aquaba. So you you might know

there have been attacks recently in

Aquaba, which is this really lovely

resort town. I've never been there. And

the uh and the fact is um there are

business American businessmen um uh

moving all around the Middle East now to

build these pipelines. And so I can

imagine there being terrorist attacks

against the uh the hotels that are

staying at uh the um German and um

British embassies have just ordered

their evacuation. America State

Department has issued an advisory over

the weekend for Americans to start

leaving the region. But I'm concerned

about terrorist attack because

threatening in or actually doing ground

control, controlling pieces of homeland

territory is the biggest risk factor for

suicide terrorism. That's what causes

people more than anything else to strap

on bombs to kill others while they're

killing themselves. So before we explain

in detail, so when you say Stephen, what

I'm looking for in the next few weeks,

>> I'm seeing the spiral of escalation now

occurring. It's a two-sided spiral. It's

not just President Trump. Iran is uh uh

escalating here as much as Trump, if not

more. And uh in this spiral of

escalation, there could be a mass

casualty attack either against our

troops or against American civilians.

And the American civilian attack could

be anywhere in the world. It could be in

Indonesia. It could be London. It could

be anywhere. And if that mass casualty

event happens, I think what you're going

to see is that this is likely going to

cause that division we just discussed

here to in America, support for the war

to harden even more. And you're going to

get though intense support for

continuing the war now to stop uh mass

casualty attacks by Iran in the future.

So you have spent some of your career

studying terrorist attacks

>> and I guess suicide terrorist attacks

>> specifically. Yes.

>> Give me a view into the research the

work you've done there. You've written a

book on it.

>> Two

>> two books on it.

>> And then ladder me up to how that's

relevant to the moment we're in now. So,

shortly after 9/11, this was, remember,

America was hit with a a terrorist

attack here in uh New York, the World

Trade Center, the Pentagon. Uh nearly

3,000 Americans died that day. I wanted

to understand why, and I wanted to

understand more. The more I studied it,

I noticed that 9/11 was a suicide

attack. It wasn't just a terrorist

attack. So, I started to collect what

became the first complete data set of

all suicide attacks around the world. Uh

I did this uh at the University of

Chicago. I did this with a few research

assistants, basically work study

students. The suicide terrorism, the

reason I studied it, Stephen, was

because it's the lung cancer of

terrorism. Suicide attacks kill more

people in the category of terrorism than

all the other different kinds of

terrorism combined. The suicide attacks

are the biggest killer. Uh it's like

lung cancer. We have other kinds of

cancers, but lung cancer is the biggest

killer. And what is the key risk factor

for the lung cancer of suicide

terrorism? It's military combat presence

on territory the terrorist prize.

>> So with suicide terrorism, is it hard to

stop? Because you know, we can intercept

missiles that are coming over pretty

well, it seems, but suicide terrorism

seems to be a completely different type

of challenge. Suicide terrorism is like

a precision guided is like turning a

person into a precisiong guided weapon

because literally

nothing can better identify the most

vulnerable point in a crowd, the most

vulnerable point in a building, the

exact split second to set off the the

the explosive better than a human.

>> And the how does the US, for example,

you're saying two things. You're saying

that that attack could happen in the

United States, but also it doesn't have

to. It could happen anywhere in those

regions where there's a high density of

Americans or Westerners. Theoretically,

>> that's right.

>> Because, you know, the Americans could

say, "Well, we're not going to let in

anybody from those regions. We're going

to get more diligent with passport

checks, whatever."

>> That will happen after the fir, God

forbid, I hope I'm wrong, Stephen, but

if and when that first attack happens,

you're going to see all that come out.

You're going to see what can come out.

>> You're going to see all the idea of what

can we do? Can we do passport checks?

Can we do X or Y? What this is right

after 911, similar thing happened. Let's

hope nothing that large would would

happen. But let me just further explain

that when I when I um compiled that

database and it made a specific

prediction. It predicted then that if we

invaded and occupied Iraq, we would

touch off the largest suicide terrorist

campaign in modern times.

What is it? What is it about okay

invading

their country in particular versus

bombing their country in particular that

causes suicide terrorist attacks from

your research? Like what is it? Because

bombing them from the sky is is killing

people that it's not the killing people

part of this that matters. It's the

political control part that comes with

the ground forces. So the reason to use

the ground forces is to impose political

control.

>> So

>> that's not just killing people, Stephen.

>> So the reason why America put in ground

forces

>> is to get political control and that

political control means the group

controlled doesn't control its way of

life.

>> It's sort of seen as a deeper violation.

Is that ultimately what it is? It's a

deeper violation that is uh not in

control of the local population. So when

we put in ground forces in Afghanistan

after we topple the Taliban, we topple

the Taliban with their power by the way,

but we don't get much suicide attacks in

Afghanistan till we start pouring in

ground forces in Afghanistan. That comes

after we topple the Taliban. So we

topple the Taliban in fall 2021 and then

we get the suicide terrorism starting

several years later in Afghanistan. It's

because that's when we're putting in the

ground forces.

>> So Donald Trump has just posted on Truth

Social a few hours ago saying every time

Iran kills an American soldier, they

will pay for that killing many times

over. This directive has been passed

onto the Secretary of War, Pete Hexath,

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs

and his other military leader. And

obviously this is in response to losing

an American life. and he's very actively

tweeting as we speak about the war um

tweet after tweet after tweet after

tweet on true social. It it it begs the

I mean I just don't know what is there a

end an achievable endgame or off-ramp

here that restores the free shipping

through the straight of Hermuz but also

allows the United States to retract

without appearing to have suffered a a

strategic defeat.

>> No, Stephen, there is not an achievable

offramp. um that ship sailed first when

um President Trump decided in the first

week in March not to declare he could

have declared my advice at that point

first week in March was to declare

victory and walk away to say all you

wanted to do was teach Iran a lesson

you'd killed the supreme leader a bunch

of other leaders now let's go back uh to

negotiate uh with um about Iran's

nuclear prayer he did not do that when I

was with you in April I was giving a

different advice. Um that advice then

was to militarily contain Israel. That

advice was to keep a lid. Israel was

moving into Lebanon doing other things.

Keep a lid on Israel militarily. Um

President Trump has taken these ideas

and I'm not saying because I said them,

but he's taken those ideas months too

late. If you look at what I'm I think

President Trump might think he is trying

to militarily contain Israel right now

uh with theou I do think he tried to

declare victory and and and walk out.

But the problem here Stephen is that

these are now u a day late and a dollar

short. They're just not good enough. So

if you wanted to get back to the