Full transcript of “Roy Answers: Iran-Israel Conflict”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 Thank you to uh Roy's YouTube community. Uh we asked y'all some questions or we asked you to give us some questions about the current situation, the conflict between Israel and Iran. Um today is what is today? June 24th. Um so for some context um the US recently had an air strike in Iran and they retaliated on an air base in Qatar and now there is um a ceasefire that has within the past 12 24 hours. So given that context uh Roy is going to answer some of the questions you gave us. Thank you for all the questions. We had over 200 responses and uh so these are some of the ones that we've boiled down to ask Roy. Hello Roy. Hi. How's it
0:48 going? Good. Good to see you Jeremy. Been a while. It's good to see you Roy. Yes, it has been. All right. Are you ready for the first question? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, first question. We're going to start with some historical foundations. We have a couple questions from from this uh category. Uh, how have USIran relations evolved since the 1953 CIA backed coup and how do those events still shape current tensions today? Okay. Well, that's that's a foundational question. So, uh, in the British Empire's imagination, Iran was supposed to end up inside the British Empire, at least part of it. Um what they realized was that they they
1:33 didn't really have the tools to conquer Iran. They didn't have the resources. They were too spread out. You know, there's enough that they had conquered India. So they came up with an idea that they would they would co-conquer Iran with this with the Russians. And it ended up in Sykes Pico, which was the plan to divide up the m middle east between France uh and Great Britain. France and Great Britain made the the plan. think they were going to include Greece and Italy and Russia, but they didn't ever ever ask those countries for their opinion. They were just being thrown in. Um, and then the Russians had the Communist Revolution and the Soviet Union told them there was no no possibility they would do this. But that's after the Russians did actually
2:19 invade Iran uh in 1909 and the British and the Russians worked together to overthrow Iran's first attempt at a democracy which was created in in 1906 and they successfully tanked that democracy. So in 1950, Iran created its second attempt at a democracy and in 1953 the United States uh CIA conducted a coup d'etaton and overthrew Iran's second democracy. So its two democracies were killed. Um when the second democracy was put down, the British had it in their mind that the United States would do the coup, but then Iran would end up in Britain's sphere of influence. And the United States had a different plan which was that Iran would end up in the United States's sphere of influence.
3:06 And in the period from 1953 to 1979, Iran and the United States became extremely close uh to the to the point where the United States actually headquartered its CIA operations for Asia and Tahan. And that included because the CIA needed to be able to print money quickly, that included mint plates to make uh five and $20 bills. And it included a lot of data like where where the spies in China were. Um and then, you know, the United States also sold Iran F-14 Tomcaps. Only two countries on the planet have ever owned F-14s. It's the United States and and
3:52 Iran. And so we we ended up with this really close relationship to the point where there were jokes being made uh that would go things like Iran is the shopping mall of the Middle East or uh Iran is thei the little United States. Um, Gouch the the singer. Uh, if you if you like uh pop music and you wanted to hear something that was kind of uh culturally more or less recent in Iran, Gush is the person. She's amazing, amazing artist. She her album that she put out in the 1970s has her wearing a cowboy hat with bleached blonde hair and she's holding two pistols and you know like this this
4:40 is where they had gotten to. Um Iran had really sort of taken on this idea that it was westernizing and it was modernizing but it wasn't ready to give up its cultural past. So it was it was holding on to a lot of that legacy. It's poetry, you know, looking at the Hakimei Empire and and glorifying that and trying to put those symbol sets up. And so when the Islamic Revolution happened in 1979 and it all came crashing down, it was the United States acted like a scorned lover. It the United States took this extremely personally. Now obviously the Iranians also made it personal. It was
5:25 uh it wasn't like they were making it personal. Um you know the Iranian leadership was calling United States the great Satan. People were in the streets chanting magma ala which means death to America. uh the America the the American flag was painted on the side of a building and it ended in bombs and skulls and you know like it was there was a lot of really intense anti-American feeling but I think psychologically the the damage on the other side of the Atlantic was that we felt like we had been scored like we were rejected after this really intense relationship and it was just pendulum swing that there was a population of people who felt that Iran
6:11 had just gone too far and had rejected too much of its culture and too much of its religion. And when that happens, you're going to get a wild and painful pendulum swing. And that's exactly what happened. Um, the Sha during the 25 plus years between 53 and and 79, the Sha was a tyrant. He wasn't he wasn't the worst tyrant the world has ever seen by any means, but he did not allow true freedom of press or true freedom of speech. He didn't allow for any real political rivalry. Right up until the end, uh Jimmy Carter put a lot of pressure on him to start to liberalize. But, you know, it was it was too late. It was too late to liberalize at that point. He should have been doing that years earlier and transitioning especially
6:57 because the clock on his life was running out and you know he he leaves the country to go get medical treatment and that's when the revolution happens in his absence. In many ways it's a lot like the Soviet Union. Gorbachev is doing paristrika and glass nostal right before it implodes and the Soviet Union dies anyway. you reforms are great, but you don't want to do them too late. You want to do them in time to actually have them save your state. Um, so that that period of time switches over to the revolutionary period where Iran completely ends up rejecting the United States. And
7:42 we we were in a really nasty kind of cold war status with Iran. uh Reagan became president and he he encouraged Iraq to attack Iran. The United States actually did militarily not only back the Iraqis, but the United States on multiple occasions bombed Iranian facilities. Um and and definitely part played a very active role against Iran. Um, ironically enough, all over North was selling your own spare parts for its uh US equipment, including the F-14 Top Shaft at four times market value. So, we're we're giving Iraq all this equipment and then selling your own spare parts for its equipment. Um,
8:28 and then, interestingly enough, in the Clinton administration, there was a thawing out, and it was because of the Iranian president, his name was Katami. And Katami wanted to liberalize Iran, he wanted to put in a bunch of reforms. Uh, as a president, he had very limited power, but because he had the backing of the people, because the people really wanted this, he was successfully getting some of those reforms through. And he began uh secret negotiations with the United States that became a little bit more public as time went by. And the, you know, the United States's number one demands was, "We want to start seeing US products being sold in your country, and the Iranians were like, "Okay, I mean, we we thought we
9:15 would be talking about other things, but your first priority is Coca-Cola to be drunk by our people, so we'll accommodate that." And and then 911 happened. And when 9/11 happened, uh, Iran immediately put out a condemnation and then said that Iran was willing to do anything to help the United States. Um, and at that point, the United States took Iran up on that offer. Iran had been backing the rebels who were fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. And, uh, we basically said, "We want to have contact with those rebels cuz we're going to help use them to fight the Taliban." And Iran went, "Yeah, absolutely. An enemy of an enemy is a friend will help you out. And
10:02 the Iranians thought that was it between the cooling off period or I should say the thawing off period that was taking place in the Clinton administration and then Iran helping the United States in Afghanistan. I think huge portion of the Iranian government thought this is it. We're going to be friends. We're going to figure this out. And uh then in 200 uh2 just a few months later uh George Bush Jr. got up and he gave his state of the union speech and he said there is an axis of evil and he said it's Iraq, Iran and North Korea and that was it. The hardliners in Iran were empowered. They pushed back against the reformers and they the the rhetoric went
10:48 back to there's no way to to make peace with the United States. There's no future for that. And we've been on that path really ever since. Uh there was there have been, you know, attempts here and there to sort of fix things, but nothing serious. 2015 we got the JCPOA and then Trump tore it up in 2018. Um, so any attempts at sort of bringing Iran back into the world seen the Clinton administration and then the Obama administration were destroyed by the subsequent Republican president that came in. This next one is is basically followup. You you you covered it uh by answering that that first one, but I'll I'll I'll state it in its entirety and you could address it how you want. Um,
11:35 has the long history of Western intervention, including regime change, been driven more by political or economic motives? Yeah, that's a good question. Um, so the the answer is yes. And the reason I'm saying that is because there there are definitely times when it's obvious United States is acting for political reasons and there are times when the United States is acting for economic reasons. Um, and it there's a pattern too, like a geographical pattern to this. So, for example, in Central America where the United States would go in in 100 120 years ago and overthrow Nicaragua's government or overthrow Honduras's government or overthrow Guatemala's government, they were very clearly interested in the price of bananas.
12:22 Literally, the price of bananas. And so, they that's where the term banana republic comes from. we would go in overthrow the existing state and then bring in a a puppet who was going to lower the price of an ads. Um so clearly that was an economic motive and a lot of what we were doing in East Asia or interventions in China and Korea for example in the same time period 120 years ago those were clearly very economically oriented policy choices. But then there are moments when we we are clearly acting out in a way that looks like it's more ideological. And in the case of Iran, I think that's a a clear example of it. That if we really cared about the economics of this, we would have followed through
13:08 with the integration of of Iran back into the global system that Katami was trying to pull off. Um, if you know if Katami had been successful and he could have only been successful if the United States gave him the economic ability, right? If if he was if Iranians saw their their wealth increasing, it would have given him the kind of backing he needed because you got to remember by the Iranian constitution, he's the president of Iran isn't the guy in charge. The supreme leader is hence his name supreme leader, right? And it's the there have only been two. The other one is the current one is I swear they did that just to mess up Americans. You constantly hear people go
13:53 and then no dude that guy died a long time ago. It's time to update. Um but so so there are these times when the United States clearly sacrifices economics because there's something else at stake. our our our blind support of Israel is another classic example of that. If we really cared about the economics of this, we would have definitely abandoned Israel a long time ago. Um we we lose so many opportunities to do business in the Middle East because of this. Um and then you know what we did in Vietnam was another classic example of that. There are moments when we clearly aren't operating on economic by economic motives. Interesting. So I think that
14:38 the political motives there because we see this now in in US politics is that the political motives of just the the uh public opinion to stay in power for the votes far outweigh any other reason. A lot of times it just leads right back to personal economic motives. Um but yeah we'll go on the next question. This is just me talking. No, but it's it's an important point that you bring up, which is one of the problems with electoral republics is that the politicians have to somehow motivate their voters to go to the voting booth. And that's not always easy. So, it'd be great if you had some kind of emotional issue. And, you know, having a villain
15:24 that you can point to and say, "That guy, they're bad. We hate them is a great way to motivate voters." Um, it turns out the two emotions voters are most responsive to are hatred and fear. So, if you can fill people with fear and hatred, you can get them out there to vote. Uh, by the way, the worst emotion you can get them with is disgust. So, you have that's a thin line of hatred, fear, and disgust, right? You need to if if you're trying to manipulate people, you got to get it right. And there are some really amazing masters at at this. The unfortunate thing is is what you're literally doing is you're dividing your own population and pinning it off against itself in the process and
16:09 eventually that that will result in a civil war, right? It's just inevitable that at some point you'll have crossed the line. All right, we're going to go to next topic of more US- ccentric US power, policy, and influence. The question is why has the US shifted from covert regime change to open declarations of such intentions? Yeah, that is a fascinating thing. So, in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, um there the US re-evaluated the way it was going to approach international politics. And of course, most of that was actually done under Bill Clinton. And one of the things that Bill Clinton decided to do was start defunding the
16:54 State Department and increasing military funding. So he he literally shifted our emphasis from diplomacy to war. Um this is one of Clinton's many mistakes but he's that he's you know he he sort of ruined our approach to diplomacy by doing this. One of the things you have to remember is there was kind of a a code amongst most of the leaders the United States had produced in the 20th century 20th century like after uh Roosevelt after the the second Roosevelt. So, forget Harding and Koolage and and Taft, those guys, but
17:40 Wilson maybe you could include in this and and even Theodore Roosevelt you could include in this and then everybody after Franklin. And what what what the understanding was was that we were going to at least pretend that we were the good guys. We were going to we're going to hold hold ourselves to we're going to hold the world to a set of standards that we would never reach, right? But we were going to pretend that we had reached it and we were the beacon of hope for humanity. That was that was the approach. And that meant that we needed to operate in a way where the president was sort of you know above politics. the president looked out for the best interests of the world and the country,
18:27 right? We were at least pretending that those things were true even when they weren't. Um Reagan and Nixon kind of started to break that a little bit, but even they were holding on to it to a degree. George Bush Senior is kind of the last to that that way of thinking. And let me just give you an example of what I mean. So when the Berlin Wall fell up, there was a moment there where the US could have made a really big mistake. And the the difference between the big mistake and not making the big mistake was who was president. If it had been Reagan or Clinton or George Bush Jr. or
19:13 or Trump, I'm pretty sure we would have made the big mistake. But because it happened to be George Bush Senior and maybe Obama would have done the right thing, I'm not sure. But George Bush Senior did it. His response to the Berlin Wall coming down was to do nothing. And when you think about it, this is the perfect opportunity for Reagan or Clinton to jump on an airplane, fly to Berlin, dance on the wall, and thumb their noses at the Soviets and say, "Look, your your stupid wall came down." and and mock them. Instead, by Bush not doing that, by Bush not taking the opportunity to go rub it, rub salt in the in the wound of the Soviets, he left the door open to to have a good
20:00 conversation with Gorbachov and then and subsequently with Boris Yeltson. And we actually ended up because of Bush's actions with 10 years of peace with the Russians. the the cold war really was lifted and from 1990 to 2000 we really had relationship with Russia. It was incredible to the point where George Bush sen senior went to Gorbachoff and said look uh Germany is going to reunify. That's a done deal. Germany is a NATO member. That means that East Germany is going to end up being in NATO. what do I have to do to make you happy? Right? Today, a a president like Trump
20:46 isn't going to ask a question like that. He's going to he's going to say, "Too bad for you. Go to hell." And that be the end of it. And instead, he and Gorbachoff had a conversation. And they came up, by the way, with a deal. And by the way, the deal was that NATO would not expand east of of East Germany. And of course a few years later it totally began expanding east of East Germany. Was it 909 99 when uh Poland uh is it Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic I think joined NATO in 99? I'm probably wrong about my year, but we immediately began expanding eastward at least under the Clinton administration. Even though George Bush Senior had
21:32 promised Gorbachoff that would not happen. The reason I'm saying all this is because that that was a style of presidency that Clinton began the process of of jettisoning. Although again, Reagan and Nixon had actually started that as even before Clinton. So that by the time we got to George Bush Jr. which was right literally it went George Bush senior Clinton George Bush Jr. like we're only talking two presidents later he's openly actively talking about overthrowing governments in the Middle East one after the other uh right taking out the Taliban taking out Saddam Hussein when they were when they were talking about taking out Saddam Hussein they actually came up with a list of countries they were going to invade and conquer and there were two
22:18 different lists that were being circulated. One list was that it would go um the first thing to do was Iraq, then Syria, then Lebanon, and then I think they wanted to do I I think this is the order after Lebanon, Libya, then Sudan, and then they would end with Iran. And they were going to they were going to change everybody's flags, and they were going to send Christian missionaries to these countries to try and Christianize them. And they were going to send in the IMF and the World Bank and they were going to completely redo these countries, right? They would all have white and light blue stripes on their flags and they were going to be redone in the United States's image. That was the goal. The other plan was they would invade Iraq and then they would either do Iran or Syria next and then after
23:06 that they were going to go for Saudi Arabia and then finally they're going to end with Egypt. And both of these plans were based on the idea that there was nothing that the Middle East could do to stop this from happening. And of course, what ended up happening was Iraq and Afghanistan just humiliated the United States and stopped them cold and in the in our tracks. And you know, here we are and the Middle East is in much worse shape than it was when we found it. Um, so beginning with George Bush Jr., There was just no even pretending that we were about letting people have the right to self-determination. There was no we that had all been jettisoned. And instead of us relying on State
23:52 Department to go in there with soft power and try and convince people, the whole idea was we were going to go in there with military power and overwhelm, you know. the but the real origins of this of course was the CIA running around overthrowing democracies and literally waging terrorist campaigns to try and convince voters to vote one way or the other and so yeah it's it was a long time in the making basically but you should do a talk just on the un unchecked operations of the CIA for for a while. Yeah. I mean, I if I were the the king of the United States, I would just delete the CIA. I don't see what purpose they serve. They were kind of their own sovereign entity
24:39 for a long time. They really were and they taxpayer dollars. Well, they were created by a group of men that went to the government and said, "Do you want us or and we'll let you fund us or we just go do it on our own?" And the government went, "Okay, we'll fund you." Like, this is not okay. That's what we decided. We decided we wanted to have a wing of chaos creation that would assassinate people and overthrow democracies. But you know what's crazy is they suck at predicting anything. They didn't they didn't predict the fall of the Soviet Union. They didn't predict the break up of Yugoslavia. They didn't predict the fall of Kashar al-Assad's government. Like they they have never actually served us any other purpose than being uh a chaos sewing entity other than uh corporate
25:26 espionage. They do they do successfully spy on other people's companies and steal their secrets. This is an interesting question. It kind of gets into the hypocrisy of our American ideology or US's ideological background for some of our actions. The question is, how do American leaders and media reconcile promoting human rights while backing governments that violate international law? Yeah, this this is one of those interesting things. Okay, so it's not hard to come up with a list of the governments that violate international law, war crimes, crimes against humanity that the United States backs. Um, but you have to also remember the United States has actually never been the beacon of goodness that it
26:12 pretends to be. Uh, I mean, it wasn't that long ago when the United States was still had slavery. And it wasn't that long ago when the United States was, "Oh, well, the United States is still actively committing genocide against Native Americans." So, uh, we have our own human rights violations that we regularly do with the Native American population. Um, you know, with unarmed black people in the in the way that police deal with them. Uh, what we're doing now to immigrants, we are clearly in that zone where we're the human rights violator. So, at some level, us interacting with human rights violators isn't really hypocrisy. The hypocrisy is the way we're portrayed. The way we're portrayed in movies, the way we're portrayed in in the news as,
26:58 you know, we're the good guy who rah. We stand for human rights. Ironically, in many ways, uh, countries that we villainize frequently actually did a better job of standing for human rights than we. Um, yeah. I think the average American in their mind thinks we Yeah, what we're doing is wrong, but it's what we need to do for the greater good. Like if if I commit enough evil, there will be goodness created in the world. And I I think that's how they reconcile it in their heads. You know, the ends justify the means. The ends justify the means. And I obviously I I disagree with that. That never ends. That's the that's just that endless justification cycle of
27:45 doing horrible things. Yeah. And one of the things we do too is we oversimplify things. You know, like for example, I think in our mindset, monarchy is bad and and democracy is good. But, you know, there are plenty of monarchies in the world that are working great and they they produce fantastic outcomes. And there are there are republics in the world that aren't working great, are not producing fantastic outcomes. And I think that's also a problem that we've made this too ideological, you know, like if you're a capitalist and you're a democracy, you're automatically good and that isn't necessarily the case. Um, yeah. So, I think there's there's like an oversimplification on the part of the public and there's there's also this uh deal with the devil attitude here. It's
28:30 going on to another question which is kind of an interesting dichotomy. Uh, it's a really good question I think. But why is Israel allowed to possess nuclear weapons while Iran faces intense opposition or even pursuing enrichment? Yeah. So, one of the interesting things is if you look back at when Israel really started thinking about getting nuclear weapons, uh the United States was against it and resisted Israel getting the nuclear weapon. Um, Israel's response to that was to break into the Oakidge, Tennessee plant and that literally steal material out of it and bring it to to Israel. Um, and then of course Israel began working with apartheid South Africa and uh,
29:16 aparttheid South Africa had access to plenty of uranium. Israel had the knowhow. They didn't have the material and they said to the South Africans, "Look, we'll help you build nukes if you give us the material." And they they struck a deal. Uh I think it was 1979. I could be wrong with my year about my year. It was during the Carter administration, but somebody mysteriously detonated a nuclear bomb in the South Atlantic. And then uh I want to say the next year there was another two or three detonations. And you know, Jimmy Carter's response was to do nothing. But it was very clear to everybody on the planet that it was it was an apartheid South Africa Israel uh test. These were tests. They were
30:03 just making sure that the nukes that were being made worked. And it's very probable that the Israelis had the nukes, you know, maybe as much as 10 years prior, but they just didn't have they did they hadn't tested them yet. So 79, I think, is the test year. And in a way that was all on purpose. The Israelis wanted the world to know they had the nukes but didn't want to detonate them in in their own territory because they didn't want anybody able to prove that they had them. And in that way it could be a threat that they could use against potential rivals like look we have the nuke we will use it you need to back off. the at the end of the day the answer is the United States Security Council vote.
30:51 The United States the Security Council has I don't know how many votes at this pointing out every time Israel has done a crime against humanity and then the United States steps in and says no and vetos it. Um the United States allows Israel to literally break every every law ever created including by us, you know, international conduct. For example, it is it was uh one of the defenses during war during the Nurburg trials that the Nazis were using that they did a preemptive war against first Poland and then later the Soviet Union because they believed that Poland and the Soviet Union posed a direct threat to Germany and Germany's security and
31:36 they were just trying to eliminate that threat. And we were like guilty and we put a noose around their neck and broke their necks and killed them and declared that a preemptive war was a crime against humanity or a war crime. Sorry. It's a it's a war crime. Well, what what do you call what Israel does on a daily basis when they're attacking Gaza, when they're attacking Syria, when they're attacking Lebanon, or now they're attacking Iran? Those are all preemptive strikes. that the United States itself said was a war crime. And yet here we are and the world really doesn't seem to be interested in doing anything about it. One of the things that comes up from
32:21 time to time is why aren't the Arabs doing something about it? Well, there was a war in 48. There was a war in 56. There was a war in ' 67. There was a war in 73. Then the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 78 and withdrew. and then they invaded in ' 82 and stayed until 2000. And the the answer is that the Palestinians are Arabs and they're stuck in a perpetual war now uh since 1948. And the the the problem isn't that the Arabs aren't fighting the Israelis. The problem is that there's no way to win as long as the United States backs Israel. And and and that that was proven in 1973. In the first two days of the 1973 war, Egypt beat the crap out of the Israeli military and the United States intervened and saved Israel and put Israel into a position where it could do
33:07 a counter offensive and militarily win the 73 war. It was like cheating at that point. And President Saddat got up in front of the world and said, "We proved we can beat Israel, but nobody can beat the United States." M and and I think that was the moment when the the Arab world just went, okay, that we're going to have to endure this. There is no way out of this. The United States is going to let Israel just do whatever it wants to. And and how do you disarm a nuclear power anyway? Do you invade it? It's going to drop nukes. That's the whole idea. I mean, that's the lesson North Korea has taught the world. If you have the nuke, you'll be left alone. So, is that is that the
33:53 reason you think that Iran pursuing nuclear enrichment has been so opposed by everyone? Because Israel, it sounds like they just kind of snuck it in and did it and are like, "No, now you already have them. We're not going to mess with it." Yeah. But since Iran doesn't have it yet, we want you to not have it. Yeah. I I mean, that's 100%. We don't want Iran to get the nuke because at that point we can't invade it, right? There's no military option going forward. Um, Israel won't be able to terrorize it and bomb it. Having said that, all the intelligence uh reports that I've seen anyway, including those issued by Tulsi Gabbard, a member of the Trump administration, um, have said that basically since 2015, Iran has been playing by the rules of
34:40 the JCPOA, even though Trump tore it up in 2018. And so in reality, Iran is not actively pursuing the creation of the nuke, at least according to the intelligence reports that are out there. So, you know, I know every every year Netanyahu says Iran is within two months of making a nuke. And he's been saying that what since 2012, I believe. So, we're now 13 years from of Iran being within 2 months of making the nuke. Um, if they had the nuke, I I don't think Israel would have attacked. I don't think that was on the table. And I think right now the Iranian government is going, "Okay, lesson learned. We were playing, you
35:26 know, by the rules for 10 years, even though this treaty that we had signed got unilaterally torn up, I bet you they're going to do everything they can to get the nuke as fast as they can, including maybe cheating and buying it, like just buying one from North Korea or something." Why? Why wouldn't they? Oh, I would I would do everything I could to get it now. Um, lesson learned is what I would see this as. And and for the for that matter, if you're Saudi Arabia, if you're Turkey, if you're Germany, you're Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, like I think everybody should be scrambling to get a hold of a nuke at this point. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's no law, right? There's no there's no international law, and it's just a bunch of rogue countries, including the United States. It's like look what the United States did to Iraq and Afghanistan. Like what
36:13 was that? Yeah. You know, as soon as you as soon as you have the the capability, then you have more say. I guess you have more control because people aren't going to It's not worth the risk. It's not worth the risk. I mean, look at how many times India and Pakistan have been on the brink of breaking out in a war. And I think every time they're like, "Oh, oh, wait. We can't fight each other anymore. Okay, fine. Let's stop. All right. So, let's let's dig back into the current situation. These are more theoretical looking into the future of what's currently going on. So, the topic is escalation risks and tactical scenarios. First question is, what is the worst case scenario for the US in this conflict? Okay, I've been thinking
36:58 about this. So, the worst case scenario is that Iran feels like it's backed into a corner and there's no way out. And what'll happen at that point, I I believe, and I I could be wrong, but I think that's what the attack in Dothler was a signal for, right? We're going to attack a military base. We're probably not going to kill anybody. We're probably not going to do any major damage, but we're going to do this, and we're going to do this in gap. Like, gap is at at worst, it's a neutral state. At best, it's actually leaning pro-Iran. like it has a friendly relationship with Iran and Qatar has served the United States as a negotiator. Qatar is our
37:45 primary negotiator with Hamas and the Taliban for example. So for Iran to attack Dar was really fascinating like it's sending a signal and here's the signal I heard. I could be wrong but this is what I heard. If you guys keep escalating and you back us into a corner, we're not going to shut down. We're not going to just shut down the straits of Ormuz. We're going to start sinking oil tankers. We're going to start targeting not just military bases, but we're going to target oil facilities. And we're not going to care what country those oil facilities are in. And we're going to have our Houthies shut down Babel Mandab and keep launching missiles at all the ships in the Red Sea. And we're going to go for breaking the global economy. That's the message I heard. And at that point then, what's the United States's
38:31 response going to be? We will look like idiots and fools if we don't strike back. And as a result, what are we going to keep launching missiles at them? They're going to keep launching missiles at us. At some point, we'll have to put boots on the ground. Iran is 90 plus million people. Afghanistan today is 40 million. When we invaded, it wasn't. I think it was 30 million. So, uh, we couldn't defeat a country one-third the size of Iran, and we were there 20 years, and we were so shamed and humiliated, the government we had put in fell before we even withdrew. So, we have no chance against Iran if we put boots on the ground. They know it.
39:17 And that's I think that's the big danger is that we'll get sucked into another war that the United States can't win. Um, and with Trump at the helm, you could totally see how that could happen. It could go worse than that. And the the worst scenario would be that Russia and China got involved directly. I don't think that's on the table because I think Russia and China would rather watch the United States get stuck in another war they can't win and watch from the sidelines as they talk weapons and money into Iran. Um, but but World War II is definitely on the table if we do. Right. So that's that's the next that's the next question. So is this conflict laying the groundwork for a third world war? It is possible. I think it's unlikely. And the reason I
40:03 think it's unlikely is because I think the Russians and the Chinese don't want one. Like there's nothing in it for them. Having said that, I could see a mistake happening. And here's the scenario where the mistake happens. uh the United States does get too heavily involved in a war with Iran and and China goes, "Oh, now's our chance to grab Taiwan and China goes to grab Taiwan and Trump throws down and says, "No." And the next thing you know, we're in a shooting war with the Chinese and Taiwan. So, I think that's the flash point is that there will be a miscalculation on the part of of China over Taiwan because they'll they'll think that Trump has either signaled by accident that he doesn't care about Taiwan because he
40:49 keeps doing that, right? He keeps saying, "I don't care about our allies. I'm not interested in defending them." and then they'll make this mistake or they'll they'll go for Taiwan and Trump will be like I don't care and they'll let it happen and Taiwan goes and that's it cuz like they can't defend themselves without us. So um at that point of course if you're South Korea and you're Japan and for that matter Vietnam and the Philippines and Indonesia you're in panic mode because you're thinking oh my god who's next? I think that's the big fear in Europe as well, right? Who's next in Putin's line? Now, fortunately for Europe, Ukraine has held its ground and you know, Putin hasn't been able to win the war and and
41:36 as far as Europe's concerned, as long as Putin is stuck fighting Ukraine, he's not fighting in Poland, right? He's not expanding the war. So this isn't actually a defeat for Europe at this point. Uh it's not great, but right these are the types of situations though that can easily end up in an accident and they spiral out of control. So this this next question you touched on uh when you're talking about Iran being backed into a corner and disrupting the global economy. So the question is, can you explain how a global war might affect food supply chains in everyday civilian life? All right. So, uh, yeah, that's a huge question. We, look what the Houthies managed to do just by launching a few
42:21 missiles last year into the Red Sea, right? It all that shipping that was going to the Suez Canal got turned around and sent around Africa and it caused serious delays, especially in Europe. Um, shortages in the in stores. And then even a few years earlier that ship that went sideways sideways in the Sewish Canal and blocked it and it caused massive disruption. Just a just a simple ship accident can have this kind of an impact. So the answer is is if we do a large scale global war, it will have a catastrophic effect on trade and shipping in a time where our planet is completely intertwined. So, you know, the grapes that you're eating in winter
43:07 are are probably grown in Chile, and you're probably eating shrimp that was grown in Brunai, and you're eating salmon that was raised in Norway, and all of a sudden those those trade lines get disrupted. Like, how do we compensate for that? Obviously, we can give up the grapes from Chile, but the protein that we're getting from Norway and Brunai might be harder to replace. and and we're going to we're going to be in a world of hurt if if we ended up in World War II. I think I think everybody would stop before it got to nuclear. Just for the record, I don't think it has to end in a nuclear war. In fact, I think it 99% it won't. What'll happen is the side that's losing will threaten a nuclear war and then everybody will go to negotiating tables. What what I think will happen
43:55 though is, you know, if the war is fought for two years, it pro we'll probably see a hundred million people die a year from starvation because the the destruction to the global economic system will not just take food off the table, it'll take money out of people's wallets and I don't know how people will feed themselves. And so the war will be a mass starvation event more than a combat triggered loss event. And that that's the scary thing about World War II. Uh the the joke I'm trying to tell to make it funny is if World War II happens, there'll be two types of people. People who know the taste of human flesh and dinner. I didn't I didn't expect that second one. We have one more question and it's about a reaction from the
44:42 Iranian people. um what is the likelihood that Iranians will rise up against their government in this moment or instead rally around their flag? So, we've we've seen Iranians basically uh rise up multiple times. The you know the the Aman um uprising that took place just a couple years ago, three years ago, and then the 2009 green movement, Masa, I forgot her first name. the Masamini uprising and then the 2009 green movement. But even before that, right in was it Hatami elected in 98? I think it was 9798 um you know Iranians have been trying to
45:28 either reform or topple their government and they've had really courageous attempts at this. Um, my experience looking at history is that when you start bombing a country, those types of reforms go by by really fast. I mean, the classic example of this was Germany in World War II. So, up until 1943, onethird, one out of every three Germans was actively resisting the Nazis. They were doing things like keeping their children from joining the Hitler Youth. they were uh sabotaging equipment. One of the interesting things is with all the German quality stuff that we think about and talk about, they were
46:14 having they were having trouble with their ammunition being unreliable cuz it would the fuses were often shorted and so their shells wouldn't go off because Germans were literally sabotaging them. But by about 1943, the US bombing campaign had flipped that around and Germans began to think, "Oh my god, we're all going to die if we don't win." And they began to rally around the state even though they disagreed with it because they began to see it as, "Oh my god, we have to survive this. How do we survive this? They're blowing our cities up." And I think that's what if this obviously there's a ceasefire right now, but it's already been violated, but maybe it'll hold. Who knows? If the
47:00 ceasefire holds, maybe 12 days of exchanging fire back and forth won't have an effect. Um, I think if the ceasefire falls apart and they return to shooting at each other, I think we'll start to see the Iranian people rally around the flag and reform goes out the window. Um the the only possible way that doesn't happen is if the Iranian economy collapses and people are literally starving to death and then then maybe you'll see you know a revolution. But what'll probably happen is Ham will jump on an airplane and fly to Moscow Beijing and hang out with Bashalas and you know uh I don't think he's going to get dragged through the streets. So,
47:47 you know, and then at that point, what is the IRGC going to do? Who knows? But I I bombing a country has not historically helped re reform movements or revolutions. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So, so there's a bunch of Iranians right now, Iranians in the diaspora, Iranians in Iran, thinking this is the end of the Islamic Republic. And I think they're gonna be really sad. I don't see it. Yeah. Well, we we'll see. There's been a lot of surprises. Yeah. And that's the thing. History has gotten a little bit unpredictable and it's entirely possible this will bring down the Islamic Republic and and we'll sink and have a
48:34 great time. I mean, look what happened to the Bashar Alasan regime. It went down so quickly and nobody saw it coming. Nobody predicted it. So even even the guys who did it were thinking they were 9 months away and it turned out they were 9 days away and you're like wait what happened? Well thank you Roy for hanging out and uh thank you for answering questions from your community. I know a lot of people um are going to be really grateful. Oh, thanks for doing this on me, Jeremy.
