Iran Update: Gulf countries rising while Europe cowers | Hour 3

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. All Right, your Iran war update, complete with precise, flawless pronunciations of people's names. All right, so first off, some of the latest news. This moved about an hour ago. According to open source Intel, Iran has suspended all petrochemical exports until further notice. That is a massive blow to their economy. Arab media portraying Trump's demand regarding Iran giving up their proxies as one of the demand, like, all right, so when they were in the discussions, you know, Trump has said no more funding of these proxies, and the Arab media is framing that as a demand from the Gulf nations, not from Trump, but from the Gulf nations. Basically. Zenebrabua commentator writer she says, the alignment of Israeli and Arab interests in this operation is getting greater every single day. I'll have more from her later on, but that was about half an hour ago. Also, an Iranian got access to that. Remember in the beginning days of the air strikes, there was the school that was blown up and a bunch of school children were killed, right that was the Menab school. So an Iranian civilian went to the site, shot a bunch of video and finally got it out because you know, they're in they've been an internet blackout for the longest period of time in history, in human history, where like an internet connected society has gone dark. And however long the first day, you know, since the first day, I think we're on day forty five now. So, and so they finally got access to starlink because Elon Musk dropped a bunch of sent a bunch of Starlinks into the country and they finally got the video out. What does it show? The Islamic Republic converted a school in inn Ab into barracks. That's where the kids were in the school, but they converted part of the school into barracks. So this civilian shared the video and photos after gaining internet access following forty six days of blackout. The regime built a guard tower and converted parts of the Shah Jarrah Taiebach School into a military position. So what does that mean? They use those kids as human shields. They specifically built a guard tower at the school in order to protect themselves, and if it doesn't protect the installation, then they can say they're killing children. Let's see what else we have here. The AP reports that the US and Iran have reached an agreement in principle to extend the ceasefire, but the blockade continues. Not really sure. A lot of this stuff is hard to you know, hard to know for certain. You've got the Pakistani guy going over to Iran where he met one of the Iranian officials and they hugged for like an awkwardly long period of time. I was kind of uncomfortable. It's like, guys, what are you doing here? You're on the tarmac, like we can see you. They were like hugging really tightly and closely and all this. So Pakistan's going there to try to organize another negotiation meeting with US. Donald Trump said today that China had agreed not to send weapons to Iran again, I would point out rule number one with Kami's is that they lie. So I'm not really sure, but he says China in a truth social post, China is very happy that I am permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz. I am doing it for them also and the world. They have agreed not to send weapons to Iran. Trump also said he expected to meet China's president Xi Jinping, who looks like a Winnie the Pooh. He's going to meet him in the coming weeks and described cooperation between the two countries as positive. David Barnia, who is the head of MOSAD in Israel, said at a press conference that MASAD is already preparing the next phase after major military operations, comes maximum support for the Iranian people, maximum fracture inside the regime, and maximum pressure to bring it down. I have said this from the very beginning. We have our interests. Think of it as a ven diagram, Kamala Harris's favorite thing, right, ven diagram. You got us interests and you have Israeli interests, and they overlap, but they are not a single circle. Yes, it would be in our interest to see the regime fall that was never one of the objectives. Though every single time Rubio or Trump or anybody in the administration talks about the objectives, they are always the same. Destroy their navy, destroy their air force and air defenses, get the yellow cake, the enriched uranium and their nuclear program, and make sure they can't project power outside of their borders. Make sure they defund the proxies and all of that, and keep the straight offord moves open. Right. So, and that's projection of power outside their borders, right, that's the other because they're you know, threatening shipping in the International Waterway. They never said regime change. They said it'd be great if it happened, but that would be up to the Iranian people. This will be their generational mode to do the thing that they have been unable to do because they don't have the weaponry. So it looks like Israel is going to help the Iranian people do that. A Middle East analyst by the name of Iman Dean, he says, I genuinely don't know whether to laugh or lose my mind anymore at this European hypocritical double standard, because the Europeans, they're out there saying things like, oh, we're going to convene. Actually I think I yeah. Here it is the European Commission plans to propose. So we are planning to propose temporary measures that have not been made yet. We have not agreed upon them yet, but we so we have to. We got to come up with some measures. The measures will just be temporary and then we're going to propose them. And that's our plan. What is the temporary measure? What do these things include? They're thinking grants, subsidies, tax breaks, and loans to mitigate the impact of the Iran war on agriculture, fisheries, and transport. Okay, well, good luck with that, guys. You're going to just throw some money at the problems. That's fine. They're not going to help the US in the blockade. They've made that very clear. The Friends tried to insert themselves into the negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, which was historic that they even met. They are now aligned Lebanon and Israel. They're aligned on getting Hesbeala out. Like everybody around the region, recognizes this opportunity for what it is. Because all of those countries, they have all been dealing with the terrorst state of Iran. They see that Iran is weak. The terrorist proxies, Hesbelah Hamas, the Hoodies, the PMF in Iraq, like, they recognize that all that funding and support and intel like, that's all dried up for them, for the proxies. So they're going to take the opportunity back to i'mandan, ripping the Europeans for their hypocritical double standards. He says, when it comes to Vladimir Putin, it's all Churchillian resolve, no compromise, no dialogue, Arm the Ukrainians to the teeth, sanction everything that moves, wreck your own energy security if necessary, because tyranny must be confronted. But then you're going to turn around and lecture us, the Gulf monarchies, Jordan and Israel about showing restraint with Tehran, about dialogue about coexistence too serious. For forty bloody years, this regime has been waging a shadow war across the region, malicious proxies, sleeper cells, terror networks, destabilizing entire countries Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and threatening the Golf monarchies Jordan and Israel non stop. This is not theoretical, This has lived reality. And yet here comes Immanuel Machran huh and kir two tier Kere Starmer and the rest of the European choir, gently advising us all to calm down, de escalate and give diplomacy a chance. He says, diplomacy with who with a system that has built its entire regional strategy on plausible deniability and proxy terror violence. The Saudis stood up for the whole of the Gulf Coast countries, the GCC, against this very thing, this control of the Strait of Hormuz. They threatened the Iranians, the Saudis did. They threaten the Iranians that closing the street would mean that all of the Gulf coast countries are not going to export a single drop of oil or liquefy natural gas as long as you're in control of the Strait of Hormus. So now it's the GCC telling the world and especially the European Union, that they're going to impose an embargo on the rest of the world. If the rest of the world is not going to enforce international law when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz. What's the point of international law if it's never enforced. So if you Europeans, you don't want to help lift this blockade and protect freedom of navigation. Okay, well, then we're not shipping any oil. How do you like that? Apples? You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. 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Iran International reports strikes in Iran reached beyond missile sites and military targets to hit three layers of the Islamic Republic's repression apparatus, including intelligence compounds, besiege bases, siege they're the thugs that do the checkpoints along the roads and stuff. They also hit police stations and judicial centers. According to an investigation, they found at least one hundred and thirty sites tied to internal repression were hit in about a month. Right, So these were the targets because they knew the Iranian people would not be able to survive another uprising against the regime if the a the repression apparatus remained in tech. So you take out all of these facilities, you take out a lot of the bad actors, right, a lot of the leadership and stuff. That's why we have seen no coordinated responses really, right, their mosaic strategy. We talked about this in the opening days where the Iranian said, hey, you know what, after the Twelve Day war where Iran just you know, pummeled them, took out a bunch of leadership, they implemented this mosaic strategy, which was to decentralize decision making down to the field level. Well, the problem with that is now you can't coordinate with everybody else. There's no mass mobilization, directed force and all of that stuff. Al Jazeera reporting that Pakistan is hopeful of a major breakthrough in Iran's nuclear talks. In fact, the Iranian Foreign Minister spokesperson sm L Bajah he says that the level and scope of nuclear enrichment are open to negotiation. Now, HM, yes, but I thought Iran was winning, aren't they. I've been reliably informed by the trans right that from the leaders of podcast to stand that Iran was totally winning this thing. Michael Duran, the director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He did a big write up at Tablet magazine talking about the seven myths of this war. He said, first off, to understand, the conflict is operating at two different levels. There's the battlefield, right, and then there's an ideological battle, which pitts American conservatism represented by Trump against a coalition of transnational progressives think Europe and restraint oriented voices on the right, think Tucker Crosson. Despite surface differences, these two groups converge in opposing American global leadership, military force, and close partnership with Israel, advancing nearly identical arguments that downplay Iranian aggression and attribute conflict to the US and Israel. They are approaching this exactly the same way those two groups transnational progressives and restraint oriented voices, he calls them. So they have built a storyline around seven myths. The first that this was a war of choice. Duran says the operation addressed two interlocking imperatives, preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and neutralizing the rapidly expanding overmatch that its drones and ballistic missiles had achieved against US and allied forces or were about to achieve. Right, this was what Rubio talked about day one, saying that this was their immunity. The missiles and drones would give them immunity to race to the bomb. That's that's why they built it all. And by the way, all of that stuff not included in the JCPOA, the Obama Iran deal wasn't that That's why they focused all of that energy on their production for these missiles and drones. Build that and now you can do the bomb work and don't worry about anybody attacking because the cost would be too high. On the text line, awesome, Andy says, Hey Pete, speaking of bad actors. Where's Kathy Griffin these days? That's fair. That's a fair question. I don't know. Should probably be on some podcasts for a bunch of right wingers soon, strange new respect for Kathy Griffin. All right. So Michael Duran at the Hudson Institute also the director for the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East, writing on the Seven Myths, Number one was this was a war of choice. He talks about, you know, their ballistic missiles, this arsenal would overwhelm the defenses of Israel, the US golf partners, creating a zone of immunity for Iran's nuclear weapons program, and then that would permanently close the window for any kind of action. And by the way, people think that our base is over in the Middle East are for Israel, No they're not. They are actually to help stabilize those Gulf coast countries. The JCPOA had moderated Iran and stabilized the Middle East before Trump abandoned it. This is the Obama deal. That's not true. The timeline and outcomes demonstrate otherwise. Major advances, including enrichment all the way to sixty percent, occurred under the Biden administration. The deal and its de facto continuation generated revenue that then funded the missile and drone programs, funded the proxy networks, and the strategic posture that enabled large scale regional conflict, including the October seventh attacks. Number three that Biden extracted America from wars in the Middle East. Through its proxies, Iran launched hundreds of attacks against US person end assets between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty five. The vast majority came after October seventh. These included strikes on American bases and naval vessels, actions that in any prior era would have been recognized as open conflict. Like Iran just doesn't want to hurt anybody, they need the nuke to protect themselves, Then why are they attacking us for four years, for forty seven, forty nine years, whatever it's been myth Number four. Tehran was totally ready to compromise. Recent proposals offered only temporary and reversible concessions on the uranium stockpiles and enrichment levels in exchange for sanctions relief, while leaving intact the missile and drone arsenal, the proxy network, and the overall military industrial complex. Number five myth Israel dragged America into the war. Strategic interests were fundamentally aligned. Iranian missiles and overmatch Kappa capabilities posed an immediate shared threat to both Israel and the United States and the Gulf nations. The US operated as the senior partner in a synchronized campaign, and the twenty twenty six National Defense Strategy identifies Israel as a model self reliant, ally capable of high intensity operations with limited American support. That is precisely the kind of country you want to help create stability, because here's the thing. In a stable world, free trade flourishes, everybody gets wealthier, standards of living go up. We want there to be stability. Despite this idea that's being pitched by the transnational left, the Europeans and the horseshoe right that we are the source and the Islamis that we are the source of all of the problems. Know that there are different sources all over the world. For the problems. We would prefer a stable world where you can sail your ships without you know, being boarded and kidnapped or blown up. Right, we would prefer there to be stability and peace because our system, our economic system, works way better, not just for us, but for the entire globe to all that adopt the system. But we flourish like that. Myth number six confronting Iran distracts from the challenge posed by China. The Middle East and the Indo Pacific are interconnected theaters. China supplies critical components for Iran's missile program and benefits from disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and Bob al Manhaba, thereby strengthened that's the one that the Hoodies are always shooting at, thereby strengthening its leverage over energy routes essential to US allies in Asia. See, that's the other thing. We have allies in Asia like Japan, for example, South Korea. Right, So if they're getting their oil from the Strait of Hormuz as well, if China tells her Ron to shut down the straight so China can then bully other people in the Indo in their area. Then in the Indo Pacific area. Right, then all of our allies are weakened. That's not good. So let's take that off the table. We're just going to knock that pawn off the board, and now China can't use it anymore. Knock off the pawn of Venezuela. Boom, They're off the board. They're actually apparently there was a a document was filed with the government under like the forest stuff, and there is I think what's her name, Rodriguez Delsea Rodriguez from Venezuela. I think she's getting ready to come to talk to Trump at the White House or something, working out some sort of big deal. Myth number seven Trump and Ninton Yahoo are or mongering megalomaniacs with no strategy. The campaign achieved its core objectives. I already listed them, Okay. The American Israeli operation has lowered immediate dangers, secured vital energy routes, and demonstrated the effectiveness of alliances built on capable burden sharing partners, prevailing critiques driven more by ideology than by results under my US credibility, weakened deterrence and serve the interests of America's adversaries. I said, from the very beginning, after the Iranians threatened the Strait of Hormuz, They're like, oh my gosh, it's shut down. And I kept telling people. I was like, they haven't actually shut it down, Like they don't have a navy anymore. Right, they didn't shut it down. It's not like there's a big gate there that no boats can go through. It was threats that prevented the ships from sailing because the insurance carriers dropped the coverage. The insurance carriers for these boats. They were like, we are not going to ensure your vessel and its cargo and its crew because the Iranians are threatening to blow up boats that sail through. And I said at the time, do you really think that the US Navy can't reopen the Straits of Hormuz if it wanted to? Of course it could. The question was why we they delay? And I think we know why. Once Iran plays that card, it's played. That's it can't play it again. And then we try to say, okay, is anybody going to help out? Anybody going to help out? No, no, okay, we'll do it, And now Iran's card has backfired on This was like one of the worst miscalculations that they made. The IRGC. The US Treasury warned banks in China, hung the UAE, and oh Man that they are processing transactions on behalf of Iran and signaled that possible secondary sanctions could be applied to them. Right, this is the pressure, the pressure being applied financially, militarily with the blockade. Right, all of this is designed for leverage, in order to make the Mulla's crack, to make the IRGC crack, and you know, concede to the demands as part of truce. One of the biggest pieces of leverage that the IRGC had was the Strait of Hormuz. And when they started threatening ships, then all of the Pannikins and the lefties and the Democrats and media. But I repeat myself, and the horseshoe right, the trans write folks, they were all like, that's it, Iran's one. They're going to bring us to our knees and all of this. But that hasn't happened. Iron's biggest mistake in the war was to weaponize the Strait of Hormus. It ranks among the most consequential miscalculations in their history, so writes Zenebribua. The Revolutionary Guard pursued two anticipated outcomes. Right. The first was a global economic shock that would be so severe that it would force Washington to back down. Iran hoped that it could cause a disruption so costly to the oil markets and allied supply chains that the US would be compelled to return to the negotiating table on Iranian terms. Because the Strait carries about twenty percent of global oil trade and a similar amount of the world's liquefied natural gas, a genuine closure would send energy prices soaring across Europe, Asia and the Gulf. That was the first objective. The second objective in closing the Strait or disrupting the Strait was political. Iran tried to use the disruption in the Strait to fracture the alignment between Washington and its partners in the Gulf, demonstrating that American military operations imposed an unbearable cost on regional stability that would put pressure on Riyad, Abu Dhabi, Doha, right, all these countries. And then they would tell us, and we said this at the very beginning, right, they would tell us, these Gulf countries would tell us, you guys need to stop stop hitting Iran. But what the IRGC failed to take into account was the weight of the political debt that it had already accumulated across the Arab world. Because for decades, Iran positioned the Israeli Palestinian conflict as the sacred center of Arab political life. This was the the you know, the cause. Everything was about the Palestinians. That was what we're fighting for. That's the reason why we have to murder Jews on buses and in cafes and stuff like. That's the thing. You notice, by the way, nothing in the Iranian ten point proposal, nothing in there about the Palestinians. Right, The animating cause that they have been promoting for decades is nowhere to be found in their ceasefire agreement. What did they do? They said, you gotta protect Hezbelah because that's actually the more important army. They are on the doorstep of Israel. So we need a ceasefire for has Belah. That's what they demanded. This conflict, the Israeli Palastinian conflict, she says, at the center of Arab political life, consecrating every Iranian intervention and branding every Arab government that resisted as a trader to Islam. The goal was to hijack Arab grievances and convert them into cover for the Islamic Republic's conquest. They are colonizers, lefties. Me speak to you in the language that you understand. Iran is a colonizing power. That's why they have their proxies in all of these different areas. The Revolutionary Guard was the instrument of that conquest, deployed across the region to construct parallel states, capture financial systems, and install political figures whose survival depended entirely on Iranian patronage. Every theater follows the same logic everywhere. They go, subordinate Arab sovereignty to the Islamic Republic's revolutionary ambition and then present the occupation as resistance. But what do you think that does to the Arab populations that are living there, ground down under this revolutionary machinery. They recognize this enterprise for what it is. They've known this. We started hearing like the Saudi Crown Prince talking this way back in like twenty seventeen. He started saying things that like Iran is the new Hitler of the Middle East. The Arab world has been keeping score for a long time with Iran. This is why the second objective fracturing the golf alignment, this is why that failed. Is because the Gulf States know what Iran is and they were hoping they could, you know, bribe them, they could do some deals with them, or something like feed the alligator with the hope that it eats, you'll last. And then they closed the straight or they disrupted the strait and they started shooting missiles at all of their neighbors. It's like, okay, time to kill the alligator. The Golf States reinforced the American posture directly, and the political dividend that Iran thought would come from the economic disruption never materialized. Their available alternatives outside the Strait can replace only about ten percent of golf throughput. Before the war, inflation in Iran was above forty percent. The currency lost more than eighty percent of its value, and over the last decade, the shadow fleet that they had assembled to smuggle oil and fund their IRGC operations was already straining under accumulated sanctions. Enforcement recruitment had collapsed. They're recruiting twelve year olds. That's a war crime by the way. The lesson in all of this is that Iran cannot be worked with or relied upon, and the Gulf States have since moved to make that lesson permanent. So here's the opportunity for the Gulf and America is to take this opportunity and realign the entire area and say cooperation, stability, right, and you create an India, Middle East Europe corridor providing the economic spine around which the broader architecture it takes sheep, all right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.