[SPEAKER_02]: The Iran's currency is collapsing, its ports are blockaded, its economies under siege, the reall is of historic lows, inflation is surging on employment and skyrocketing oil revenues under severe pressure, but war damage now exceeds more than 40% of GDP, billions are bleeding out of the regime every month.
[SPEAKER_02]: For Tehran, this is no longer Ordinary Sanctions Pressure, this is economic curing, a coordinated campaign aimed at the regime's financial survival.
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to their on breakdown, I'm your host Mark Dubois.
[SPEAKER_02]: This week, I'm joined by two experts to understand exactly how this pressure works.
[SPEAKER_02]: Me and Molliky is a senior fellow to D in a former senior treasury sanctions official who helped design and execute major U.S. sanctions campaigns against Iran and other American adversaries.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rich Goldberg, senior advisor at FTD for the White House National Security Council, director for countering Iranian weapons, a mass destruction, and one of the architects of the Maximum Pressure Campaign, both at the White House and when he was in Congress.
[SPEAKER_02]: The question now, does this pressure force a deal, or hasten the regimes unraveling?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, let's break it down.
[SPEAKER_02]: to be here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good to have you both back.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I want to just sort of step back and ask you this new name, which is Operation Economic Ferry, which is the sort of companion economic warfare strategy to the actual military warfare strategy, Operation Epic Ferry.
[SPEAKER_02]: is your sense that this is a different moment to different strategy than one that we've followed over more than two decades of sanctions pressure against the regime, mead?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is this something new or is this really more of what we were doing before?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I would say that makes of both.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the reality is now you have a blockade that is probably that the, you know, is putting the highest pressure off the economic
[SPEAKER_01]: pressure on the regime since 1979.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you bring this maximum pressure economic campaign that is my understanding based on treasure departments and announcements and what I'm hearing is a lot of focus on the diplomatic aspects of sanctions enforcement, like how you can actually engage with our partners and allies
[SPEAKER_01]: to really enforce existing sanctions which is the most critical part of any sanctions regime being forced part of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is very different again because there's a block eight that you are cutting off Iran's import and export.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're cutting off access to the ports
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other part of Iran's economic trade is through land, with Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what has been overlooked is those are petrochemical and metals to the most part.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with the strikes, Iran has reached a point that I don't think looking at the numbers, Iran can sustain those exports, because it has a domestic market that he needs to feed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And metals production, you know, see a production has dropped by 70% petrol chemicals, they're going to be struggling, feeding the domestic need or consumption, the meeting, the domestic consumption and needs.
[SPEAKER_01]: They won't be able to continue to export.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to have to cut back on what they're sending out to Turkey and Afghanistan Iraq.
[SPEAKER_01]: So everything comes down to the Persian Gulf and straight off almost the trade that they have to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's blocked.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the only thing they're left with is banking connections that they have with banks in Oman, in UAE, in Hong Kong, you know, they don't have direct bank connections, but they use shadow banking, you know, this concept of
[SPEAKER_01]: using fun companies, you know, shell companies, the bookkeeping is done inside Iran by banks, but then the transactions are done by companies that are not Iranian on paper, but they're taking the orders from Iran to move funds.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what treasure department is doing right now and what would be a critical part of this campaign is making sure that the Iranian regime is not getting access to any of his cash.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if that is successful, then this blockade is going to be if breaches, you know, the highest level of efficiency, you want to see coming out of an economic blockade.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so there's sort of two elements of the U.S. government that are going to be important.
[SPEAKER_02]: This, you work for the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which is kind of a non-conbatant command, meaning it's not military, but it's financial warfare.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where Treasury Department is going to be playing an important role in the way that you suggested.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then rich, there's the other side of this, which is said and calm.
[SPEAKER_02]: which it actually is a military combatant command.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're playing a very important role in this blockade of Iranian trade in the Gulf.
[SPEAKER_02]: So maybe rich, based on what we're here from Sandcom and your analysis of what is taking place really in the straight as we speak, what's your sense of how well this is going in these early days and how is Sandcom actually
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I have to reflect on one thing just reminiscing, and that is, you know, 21 years ago now, a young Mark Kirk in the House of Representatives teamed up with Rob Andrews from New Jersey, and they did a resolution and a whole campaign calling for a naval quarantine of Iran to restrict gasoline imports.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the time, the Iranians were importing about 40% of their gasoline.
[SPEAKER_00]: lot of it from India and elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: It took us four or five years, I want to say, to turn a quarantine idea into a sanctions idea, get it passed in Sassata in 2010.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of leaves a rise, suppose the idea, you know, the Bush administration was not on board.
[SPEAKER_00]: The quarantine idea, obviously, the Iraq war was, you know, on fire at the time, Afghanistan as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I understand from their
[SPEAKER_00]: What's old is new, and now we have a full blockade, not just a quarantine of imports, both to stop all of exports from coming out of Iran and the imports coming in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both sides of the equation, by the way, adding to the economic pressure that me I was just talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: So far, it would seem that we've set up something of a zone defense in the Gulf of Oman and anything we see that is coming out that has originated from an Iranian port is being told to halt to turn around.
[SPEAKER_00]: Far as we're being told by Central Command, you know, a dozen or so ships have been hailed all have complied.
[SPEAKER_00]: They haven't had to chase anybody down or shoot or do boardings that we know of so far.
[SPEAKER_00]: And on the import side, we also are not seeing any reports of ships that are going through the blockade and into port in Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's been discussion about some vessels that were cleared to go through apparently to Iraq, to Basra, and obviously you have to wonder about sanctions of Asian going forward by the Iranians, particularly out of southern Iraq.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've seen that before on the oil side, but if we know sort of who the tanker is, where they're coming from, what they're mission is supposed to be, imagine we'll be monitoring that very closely on the outbound side.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is by the way going to cut off their imports of gasoline at this point, you know, it's I can I'll admit I don't think I stumbled on this last year as we were moving from operation midnight hammer and then.
[SPEAKER_00]: as we saw the the uprising start in January.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reporting is really focused on the banking crisis going on around the beginning of our new year with a bank collapse in five more teetering just as people took to the streets.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also there was a gas the lean crisis going on late last year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And decisions being taken by the regime to further ration and cut subsidies for gasoline because they needed more.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were running out running low and they were increasing their imports to a very high percentage that we haven't seen in many years.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the import blockade piece here, the quarantine is actually going to hit them as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to hit them on the gasoline side.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to hit them on other.
[SPEAKER_00]: needed inputs to the economy and obviously put enormous pressure on prices domestically, which were already seeing skyrocketing hyperinflation in common goods.
[SPEAKER_00]: The banking system, if Miad, when he's talked about added on to the import restrictions, and the export revenue being denied by not being able to get their oil out,
[SPEAKER_00]: That's going to put enormous pressure on those five banks that were teetering.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that'll be one measure to see what happens there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's why you've seen these leaked reports about President Pasechky in writing MMOs to the IRGC henchmen who have taken control of the Rumpur Jean saying, hey, I know you guys are ideological.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're doing things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You think you have a strategy, but I'm watching the store here and we're not going to make it economically.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's interesting, you reference what Pazeskin said, and I think some of the numbers were quite striking about inflation, which I think has been at sort of 40, 50% of the central bank of Iran saying maybe at 180% projecting maybe at another 2 million Iranians unemployed.
[SPEAKER_02]: um, and a serious, a serious banking crisis, a serious economic crisis, by the way, which you, you did remind me what's old as new, um, it was actually one of our first projects at FDD was to work with you when you were a young staffer working with Congressman Mark Kirk on the refined petroleum sanctions, which I think at the time we called Iran's Achilles Hill.
[SPEAKER_02]: and putting pressure on some of the traders like vital and traffic urine others that were sending refined petroleum into Iran, which was always this great irony that Iran, which was an oil power with massive reserves of oil, had to actually import refined petroleum because it didn't have the refineries to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, when you look at both sides of the picture, the export picture, the import picture, help us dig into what these numbers actually mean.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what is a blockade of Hormuz mean for Iran daily in terms of lost revenue?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the damage of a 40-day war that regime is sustained directly and indirectly?
[SPEAKER_02]: Give us some of the granular numbers, so that we have a really sense of just how acute this crisis is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, let me start sharing with you kind of my perspective, coming out of this weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: The last weekend of negotiations in Pakistan.
[SPEAKER_01]: The numbers that we're about to discuss, you look at those numbers and the only way you can make sense of the Iran and delegation groups engagement and Pakistan is what I would call the economic suicide mission.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was pretty certain that listening to Gali Balf's presidential campaigns.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's been running for
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, to be a president for many years in Iran, and it went back and I listened to his campaign messages, you know, I pulled up some of his reports to see if this guy is going to actually make a deal or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: And looking at it's talking points, I'm like, he's probably going to try to get a deal, and yet we saw what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I always tell everyone that regime, the Iranian regime is its own worst enemy.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I think they're going to maintain that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But looking at going back to the numbers, so I think what we're seeing here is, you know, doing the war, coming out of the war.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know we have estimated here in FDD that it's probably somewhere between 38% of Iran's GDP damaged.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's you're looking at a GDP of $356 billion.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's we're looking at what 175 billion dollars in damages.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we can break it down sector by sector.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or as we discussed, you know, petrochemical metals, some, you know, manufacturing capabilities for natural gas, and but also what should be what we need to include in there is the internet shutdown.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is going on for about 48, 49 days now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a great indication to see where regime's head is.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they're more worried about domestic uprising and domestic pressure than what's going on in the battlefield.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you're looking at about $50 million a day in economic loss from international down.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I guess because so many sort of small Iranian businesses, even medium size Iranian businesses depend on the internet to sustain their business activities.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when you shut down the internet to prevent Iranians from knowing what's going on and from coming to the streets, it also means significant costs in not being able to actually run a business and talk to your customers and your suppliers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, the government really relies on taxation more and more every year.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the reality is they have taken over petroleum sector, you know, petrol chemicals, metals, everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And government has failed to run.
[SPEAKER_01]: a fossil-field economy that is efficient, that is generating revenue, and definitely sanctions have made that way worse for the regime.
[SPEAKER_01]: So internet has become one area that, you know, ordinary Iranians were running businesses, government was really exploiting internet to reach into international markets in generate revenue, and they shut it down now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is 43% of government budget taxation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's now being caught.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're getting close to the timing that they're going to have to start collecting taxes to pay salaries, and they're not going to be able to collect taxes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just from internet businesses, but also the metal production is down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Factories are closed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one kind of item that has been overlooked.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know about economic damages that they've sustained during the war.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're looking at about 13 to 14 days of his storage capacity for Iranian petroleum.
[SPEAKER_01]: Meaning, they have probably around 13 days of a storage to put oil that they're extracting because they can't leave this right or foremost.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's assume the blockade is successful and Iranian oil is not leaving.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have whole lot of tankers left that they can put oil on to store.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're gonna have to really rely on on shore storage in the Clark Island.
[SPEAKER_01]: And after 13 or 14 days, they're gonna have to drop their oil extraction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, in 2019, 2020, you and Rich remember, they reached a point of dropping the oil extraction.
[SPEAKER_01]: There wasn't a blockade, so they were getting ghostfully tankers.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were filling up every tanker that was available to them, so they don't have to drop oil extraction.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you remember, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: FDD put a really great paperbacked in about how US government should go after oil storage facilities in UAE and China because that's what Iranians were looking at at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not they're not going to have that option.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to have to drop their oil extraction, which means permanent long-term damage to the ability to extract oil.
[SPEAKER_01]: import is another, you know, they're sending around 276 million dollars in export a day.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're receiving about $156 million a day in import.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's going to be caught off.
[SPEAKER_01]: And gasoline is going to be the main crisis in my view in addition to the oil extraction problem that you're going to have to deal with.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there have about 30 million leaders a day of deficit in gasoline production.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, they're producing about 105 million liters a day of gasoline.
[SPEAKER_01]: They need about 130 million liters of gasoline a day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Iran's economy, Iran's transportation relies on gasoline.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, in the past few years, what really led to protesting Iran,
[SPEAKER_02]: with we did it the crisis we got so many every time to increase the price and gasoline they had people under streets right so Ron has some of the lowest gasoline prices in the world heavily subsidized right by the government right and so Iranians have grown up as a sort of birthright that you have a right to cheap gasoline um but obviously this costs the Iranian treasury
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they've tried to drop the subsidies and therefore increase the price.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it was 2017.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where there were massive protests in response to Iran increasing the prices of gasoline.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now, the rich and you are saying Iran has got them in worse crisis because that refined petroleum that it used to import is now being blockated.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not coming in.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's, I gave it about two weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: 2 to 3 weeks, 2 to 4 weeks before they have to deal with gasoline shortage in Iran.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the last item that is important is that 51% of Iran's
[SPEAKER_01]: annual budget, you know, it has increased every year, but 2020 sticks budget gave 51% of Iranian oil budget allocation to Iran's armed forces.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what that means is that, you know, the RGC law enforcement forces, Iranian airtage armed forces general staff, the headquarter of armed forces, it received oil and it goes sell it and then move the funds back to pay for their operations.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can tell you, based on my experience and knowledge of looking at these numbers and exports, Iran's on-forces been way more successful in repatriating.
[SPEAKER_01]: or revenue than national Iranian old company because they have set up layers and layers of front companies to operating in the black market that have established great connections that rely on his bull on networks, they get the oil out and they get the money back in a lot of these cases and they get it in foreign exchange, you know foreign currencies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now imagine that 51% of
[SPEAKER_01]: And that means they're going to have to think about how they're going to continue to pay salaries for RGC and armed forces.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were really relying that oil sale.
[SPEAKER_01]: As a matter of fact, we go back last year, look at a deal with the Department of Justice action that sees 158 million dollars in oil repatriation, and connected with the RGC from China to Iran.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are cases that actually have seen in the funds
[SPEAKER_01]: go back to Ketu Iran, it's rare, but it happens when it happens is mostly the RGC.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's going to be another kind of pressure on Iran's ability to continue to pay salaries.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so Rich, I mean Iran clearly facing a significant financial fiscal crisis across all
[SPEAKER_02]: lines of measurement.
[SPEAKER_02]: The damage they sustain under 70 billion during the 40-day war, the $4 and $35 million a day of exports and imports that are not going to be available to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what is at 13 billion a month.
[SPEAKER_02]: Massive inflation repressors collapse in the currency inability to actually provide gasoline to their people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yet,
[SPEAKER_02]: me at was surprised that the negotiating team shows up in Islamabad and it's still sticking to their red lines and their most important red line which is a long story and we've seen it over many years is they still refuse to give up on their enrichment capability.
[SPEAKER_02]: So after 16 hours of negotiations with Vice President Van some of the team,
[SPEAKER_02]: did we blink or did they blink?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's your sense from, at least what's been publicly reported about the negotiations?
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's my take on all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is, I think we got to the point where Admiral Cooper, the commander of Central Command, is said to the president, we came into Operation Epic Fury with a target set, a list of objectives, and we've gone through the target sets.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've reattacked, we've got BDA,
[SPEAKER_00]: we've taken B2 bombers against missile cities as much as possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've hit every part of the industrial base for missiles and drones, you know, all the upstream, all the midstream and everything, you know, has been late waste that's above ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of things below ground, we've destroyed, you know, 70, 75% of their missiles, whatever number you're going to describe to it, her different things from different sources.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that which we can't strike from
[SPEAKER_00]: We have not been able to neutralize or destroy, because perhaps where it's kept underground and penetrable to air strike.
[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore, there's a point at which you reach diminishing returns with an air-enabled campaign.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not to say there aren't other kinds of sites that are important to the regime that the president was talking about before the ceasefire was announced that he still has in his quiver A lot of these economic and and revenue generating sites critical infrastructure sites that would be important to to the rump regime of being able to maintain control.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is a good time to say, okay, what are the outstanding objectives that we have in a cheap jet?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there is enriched uranium in esfahan and tunnels apparently.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's pickaxe mountain.
[SPEAKER_00]: There must be a reason why after two rounds of operations now.
[SPEAKER_00]: last year, 12 day war midnight hammer this year now epic fury.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one's touched pickaxe mountain.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's sort of weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like it's unknown.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's talked about it's in satellite photography.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about it for years now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And with just a reminder, listeners, just who haven't been paying attention to pickaxe mountain.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is pickaxe mountain?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is a what we believe is to be a new enrichment facility deeper underground than fordo was not far from from the tons and it may be already impenetrable to mill missile strike from from above from from from the air and so it is possible that with this site being nearing completion.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only way to dismantle it is from inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that to be true.
[SPEAKER_00]: That could be a false assessment.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have access to the military plans and intelligence assessments.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there has to be a reason why it's never been hit yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's clearly outstanding to do list here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get the uranium from deep down in tunnels and is behind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pickaxe Mountain dismantled clothes, any other remaining operational potentials of Fordo remaining, you know, hanging over from last year or other sites, make sure they're dismantled.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, of course, the street of Hormuz.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a dedicated naval armata that is there for offensive military operation support, alongside defensive operations for the missiles and the drones flying all over the Gulf.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, if Badmok Cooper tells you, I've reached the target set limit, it makes sense to have a ceasefire, applause in offensive military operations for a number of reasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, the regime now will have to understand what has happened to it, which I don't think it was fully capable of assessing while major military operations were going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: and understanding the remaining threats that the president has made on other economic and critical infrastructure targets.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you can bring the rump regime to a third country for talks, you will learn a lot about what this regime is.
[SPEAKER_00]: who's actually in charge, who's making decisions, who looks like they're senior ranking at the table in the talk, who got off the plane first and protocol, how are they talking to each other?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did they call anybody while they were there?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did they not call anybody because they were afraid to give up the location of somebody which means they can't even negotiate.
[SPEAKER_00]: They came with their playbook.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all they could do, unless you're caving to their playbook, they have to go back to capital to talk about it or wherever somebody is in charge is hiding out, which is I think what the vice president has sort of intimated they think is what's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, you use the cover of that ceasefire.
[SPEAKER_00]: You pause offensive military operations.
[SPEAKER_00]: You now have this massive naval armada that can now be freed up to go after one of those
[SPEAKER_00]: So you see while the talks are going on, the president transit the state of our moves sends two destroyers in and starts clearing a pathway to show the international shipping community.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no mines here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will find the path.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will find the mines.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll destroy them if necessary.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we'll give you the coordinates of safe passage through the state of our moves.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then the rest of the naval assets are available to respond to Iran's inability to uphold its own ceasefire commitment and that is to allow for this rate of her moves to open.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that is now why we have at least ostensibly the blockade in effect here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're able to shift to economic warfare.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're able to shift to economic furious we've talked about.
[SPEAKER_00]: away from epic fury, transit the straight, work on that mission, while at the same time building leverage to get concessions from the rump regime of the unachieved objectives that perhaps are either too challenging or high risk to accomplish on the ground, not to say we don't have options for the uranium or other issues through special forces that's been widely
[SPEAKER_00]: by the rubber gene just saying yes coming up the uranium you can come tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would obviously be a better outcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we'll see.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I predict we go back to Islamabad.
[SPEAKER_00]: We may have a second round.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see if whoever it is, Vahidi behind behind the curtain or committee,
[SPEAKER_00]: Or if they actually, you know, for an hour or able to get a conscious most of a to say yes or no or to not as ed or to throw up whatever he's capable of doing right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, then come back with whatever they're going to respond to the president.
[SPEAKER_00]: The vice president said it was our final best offer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the president said he's not interested in in watering it down and we've just talked about means he has enormous leverage to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think the only question in my mind is before they decide to go back to talks.
[SPEAKER_00]: What else are they willing to do to try to bring leverage back on their side?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are they willing to concede the fact that we have something of a checkmate move on them at the moment?
[SPEAKER_00]: That we waited till this point of degrading their capabilities and their command to control to whip out the blockade instead of starting with it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or do they want to continue to try to test us and escalate and go back to firing on energy infrastructure in the Gulf, try to fire on the Red Sea, try to close the Bobble Mondeb.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they can, the Houthis have not joined this fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: The entire operation, they sent a few missiles over to Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could have attacked the Onbu anytime.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could have attacked the Red Sea anytime.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd chose not to for some reasons that nobody's decided to ask out loud why.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, clearly the regime got Hezbollah to enter the war, they got the Iraqi militias to enter the war, they did not get the Houthis for for other things, perhaps going on behind the scenes with the Saudis and the politics of Yemen and the future of what the Houthis are after.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all of that to me means the president now has time on his side more price of oil now down low 90s.
[SPEAKER_00]: could that go back up if they return fire and start opening up on on on the rest of the region and don't allow anything out of the street of our most sure could go up.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we've tested that theory.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where does it go up to?
[SPEAKER_00]: 115?
[SPEAKER_00]: 120 on a padday?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the people who have been screaming, this is going to be $150, 200 out of oil.
[SPEAKER_00]: are not correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were hypers.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were, they were speculators.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were, they were were, perhaps using the, the fear mongering of the oil market to try to get the president to back down on a conflict they didn't agree with.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's far as I can tell with suppliers, you know, from the United States replacing spot contracts left and right, long-term contracts being eyed from Asia and Europe for the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: the presidents in a pretty good position right now to use this leverage and we'll see how the room regime responds.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so me, both of us were trackling because when Rich said, you know, it's not clear that Kalebough in Islamabad can call home to Vaidi, the RGC, Supreme Commander, wherever he is, and Iran, for fear giving away his position, you would flag something for me a couple of days ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to tell that story?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a little bit of a digression, but I thought it was interesting just because I think it's revealing about
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what we do on the breakdown mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: We digress, digression is a part of the Iran breakdown.
[SPEAKER_02]: Digression, not the Iran breakdown.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you notice, like my numbers are usually gallants, you know, in better, you know, day or, you know, during, I don't do leaders, but that's what I'm doing today because I know they're listening and I want to make it easy for them to understand their state of economy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I remember trying to understand who in Iran in regime, and within regime has the actual economic numbers, and they don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you call it a central bank.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have to write numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Manage your phone efforts.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have the numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Manage your finance.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have the numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: RGC is different numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe they should hear these numbers from us to see how dire their economic situation is.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've been using leaders instead of gallons.
[SPEAKER_01]: happening at the end of the negotiations when the negotiations team apparently they saw it you having tweeted a Washington Post article if I'm getting it correctly about how if they're like if the Iranian negotiations team or not accepting a deal which you just target them off and
[SPEAKER_01]: And as soon as they see that tweet, I don't recall his name, the chief propaganda is who traveled with them to Pakistan.
[SPEAKER_01]: He tweeted a screenshot of your tweet.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: And he gave an interview and ended up making it to Tehran and he said, you know, as soon as we saw that we all changed our flights, we quickly got on the first flights out.
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't fly to Tehran, we changed our flight path, we went to Mashad and then we broke into different groups.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of us went back to Tehran and trained some of us went back on bosses and some of us just got on cars and drove back to Tehran.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: It was interesting to see how closely one to follow your messaging, your tweets, and I'm pretty sure they're listening to this.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I want to make sure they get the numbers in a way that they can digest much faster, much easier.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they've been following F2D for many years, and that's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's our opportunity to message to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's also, I mean, it wasn't my Washington Post piece, but I thought
[SPEAKER_02]: They need to understand that President Trump has given them limited immunity from these really air force and Mossad.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so as they've watched their colleagues be systematically eliminated over the 40-day war by the Israelis caught above and by E.D.
[SPEAKER_02]: and others.
[SPEAKER_02]: should need to understand.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think do understand that they're only alive because President Trump told these rallies don't touch them yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's see how the negotiations go.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so as they return to his lab about for future rounds of negotiations, I think they should keep in mind that it's not just potential massive economic costs they could be facing, but they're maybe costs to their own lives.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, all right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So because they're probably listening, maybe we'll be careful about the next topic, but I want to talk about Iran's counter play.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is what is Iran do?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if based on what you enrich your saying, they are being, they're being squeezed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, they played the
[SPEAKER_02]: only card.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd still argue they may have a nuclear card to play, which we have to be very careful of and riches alluded to this in his description of what stole remains of the nuclear program, but they certainly most visibly played the horror moves card.
[SPEAKER_02]: And President Trump responded to the horror moves play by his own counter play, and we're seeing that on the block aid.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... you've had your warmaking capabilities severely degraded your most important proxie his ball is getting pounded in lebanon i mean i people don't even talk about the lebanon side of the story but you know it's worth pointing out that just a few days ago these rallies limited two hundred and fifty senior has balla commander's in an operation that was actually more devastating the famous beeper operation that they ran
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and his ball is is really getting, getting pounded while by the way, these really just sat down yesterday with, um, the Lebanese in Washington.
[SPEAKER_02]: negotiations and talks that were convened by Secretary of State Rubio so really interesting Lebanese government now sees a weakened his bala sees a rump his bala to use riches word and is now feels safe enough secure enough to actually sit down with these rallies and start negotiations okay so things are bad for the regime
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe they've been buying into the media narrative that's been out there that they're winning and that the United States and Israel are losing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe they believe that because they follow our media and political discourse very closely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or maybe they know they're losing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now they need to fight back.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is their, what is their counter play?
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like these exercise, but let's do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I'm sitting in terror on and I have it some kind of a decision-making.
[SPEAKER_01]: power as a part of Islamic Republic, I would go back and see in the state of crisis, what is it that has been helpful?
[SPEAKER_01]: What has helped me in previous see when I faced crises?
[SPEAKER_01]: And one thing that I've been thinking about is in the height of our counter-icest operations in Iraq and Syria.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you go back to your central command, central command statements in information
[SPEAKER_01]: We were investing a lot of resources and time, countering a narrative that was very widespread across the Middle East year in the U.S., originated from Iran that ISIS was a creation of the U.S. in the West.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is started in one, and as a matter of fact, if you go back, and you can make a really strong argument that ISIS was the creation of the Islamic Republic, and it's she-it militias, activities in our board province against the Sony tribes, but they manage to make that conflict extremely difficult for us on the ground.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she had malicious, we're recruiting.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were fundraising, you know, with that narrative and things were not great for us in a narrative, in a war of narrative and perception.
[SPEAKER_01]: And...
[SPEAKER_01]: What Iranian regime is really good at is exactly that, you know, and you suck all the buffs tweet a couple days ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was right after doing back to Iran.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I would think that all the buff is back in Tehran as a speaker of the parliament.
[SPEAKER_01]: All he's going to have to think about is how can I provide some kind of economic relief domestically and postpone this
[SPEAKER_01]: He is investing in how or way he's doing it, somewhere in the US, or to put a tweet out and talk to the American citizens about the price of gasoline around the White House.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is what's the only window of relief that they're gonna count on.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can they turn or they increase domestic pressure here and in the West and throughout the Gulf?
[SPEAKER_01]: against this campaign to put an end to the blockade.
[SPEAKER_01]: This blockade is going to lead to an economic collapse.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I would argue that they've already had an economic collapse.
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's say, you know, we'll still not there yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: This blockade is going to bring into that point.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the only way out for these guys is to increase pressure, psychological pressure for this war to end to this blockade to end.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that means it's starting to target some of these golf nations, you know, oil production facilities, if they're on least the whoothies, they might reach that point and they might use that as a point of putting pressure.
[SPEAKER_01]: But anything psychological operation is what in Iran I would focus on because that would be their only way out of this and cutting a deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, I said I was surprised that they didn't agree
[SPEAKER_01]: But also, I was surprised that I was surprised after years of watching how these guys keep walking away from the best deals that were put before them.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, during President Biden administration before October 7th, I had another moment that I was surprised that they walked away from the package that Biden administration and Rob Malie had put before them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in a year we are in a middle of crisis, they're about to fall.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they come to Pakistan in the walk away from this deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think psychological operations that's something that I would focus on, how I can turn the narrative against this campaign.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then at the end of the day, I think that they're only way out would be cutting a deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wouldn't make the argument.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I stick by my position on this that
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no way you can get a deal with this regime that is an interest of long-term strategic, you know, national security interests of the U.S. or the West, that just impossible.
[SPEAKER_01]: The 10 points that was put before Iranian negotiators, if they accepted all those 10 points, there would have been a regime change.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think if I wasn't a White House, I would go through podium and announce the regime has changed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's a private insurance credit.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was actually 15 points, which were tough points.
[SPEAKER_02]: The range was responded with 10, which were ridiculous and not something President Trump would ever accept.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Rich, I want to build on what Matt said, because you've been focused not only on the economic warfare piece of this for 20 years, but also on the nuclear piece of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I guess I still struggle with a very simple question.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is, why does this regime so doggedly insist on its right to enrichment?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it is sustained, I don't know, one and a half, two trillion dollars over the year damaged.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been battered in two wars.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's face multiple.
[SPEAKER_02]: uprising the inside around that it's had to slaughter its way through.
[SPEAKER_02]: It has been under massive military pressure.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's lost out of a 50 percent of three quarters of its missile inventory launchers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Its missile industrial base has been severely degraded.
[SPEAKER_02]: Its navy has been sunk, its air force destroyed.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean the cost that this regime has sustained for its right to enrich.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it insists by the way that it's only wants to enrich for civilian energy purposes when 22 countries around the world have civilian energy programs that don't enrich or don't reprocess plutonium.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even in the offer right before this war was launched,
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you interpret this?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why are they continuing to doggedly insist on enrichment?
[SPEAKER_02]: And what is your view, which the president now I think has dismissed rightly so, but that an offer was made for a 20 or more Tory amount enrichment after which their Indians could return to enrichment?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to answer that, but I also have to that remind me, I want to come back to me how to respond and build on it because it's inspired and idea that I want to go out.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is how we do it on the breakdown, and we actually have real-time ideas that can inspired by each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The right to enrich, which just to be clear does not exist.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no right to enrich international law.
[SPEAKER_00]: The nuclear non-pliferation treaty is basically silent on the issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't get a right to enrich.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have an inherent right to access peaceful nuclear energy, nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That does not mean you have a right to enrich uranium and control the fuel cycle.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, by the way, I'm not the only person who says that John Kerry said that in the middle of JCPOA negotiation, it's not that that
[SPEAKER_00]: did very much to change his actual negotiation.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is for our non-technical listeners, the difference is what?
[SPEAKER_02]: You can have a civilian nuclear program.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can buy your fuel rods from overseas suppliers, like 20 to either countries.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't need to enrich your reprocesses on your soil, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: correct that this is a proliferation protected, you know, excluded, method of giving you nuclear energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are companies in the world, like the Russians in Iran, at Bush year, for example, where this actually occurs already.
[SPEAKER_00]: or the French, soon hopefully the Americans who will also be able to provide you if you will not just nuclear reactors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks to advancements here in this administration.
[SPEAKER_00]: But basically, you know, you decide to deal with a company, they'll build you a nuclear reactor and then they'll also make money by providing you the fuel for that reactor and then taking it back afterwards so that you can't have any funny business with the spent nuclear rods.
[SPEAKER_00]: for extraction purposes and reprocessing for plutonium.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so on both ends, you have some sort of protection on collaboration.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the model for cooperation that we signed up with, for instance, with the UAE that promised that they would not enrich uranium on their soil.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've forgotten having control over the nuclear fuel cycle.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have nuclear power.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know import their fuel.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that would be the thing we have offered to the Iranians for years that we will support you.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was by the way the original Russian offer 20 years ago, 21 years ago during the Bush administration before we even knew about Fordo.
[SPEAKER_00]: that the Russians would have international support and financing to build them multiple nuclear power plants like water reactors like Bushir to support their their energy needs if they really just thought they had to have nuclear energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, they rejected that offer, like they rejected what you just mentioned of the wick-off, Kushner Offner, because so long as they hang on to this idea, we have a right to enrich.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then that's the bumper sticker, that's the, that's under which how you always stick to something that sounds principled, sounds legalistic, sounds like a real international legal justification for what is holding out to have a path to a nuclear weapon at some point.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is an oil rich nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't even need nuclear power, but great.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to go clean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, that sounds wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could do this like many other countries do without without having enrichment, obviously.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to your point, I mean, there's not rational.
[SPEAKER_00]: to go through what they've gone through with sanctions and wars and and the rest of assassinations etc but let's also be clear here that it's not like it's in a vacuum like it's a bunch of diplomats are just holding out to have the possibility of building a nuclear bomb one day it's also within the context of an actually documented nuclear weapons program
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so let's also keep that piece of it in mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like they haven't tried to build a bomb before.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like they haven't had covert nuclear sites before that we've discovered.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like they hadn't had a lot more covert nuclear sites that we didn't discover until the Israeli stole the nuclear archive in 2018.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not like there aren't still sites.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've never gotten answers to from that archive.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all of that is to say,
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a red-haaring the president should never buy into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just their way of holding out for a bomb, which is why I think from a marketing perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, the president is sort of a marketing guy, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how he thinks it's how he talks.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do people understand?
[SPEAKER_00]: People understand enrichment right to enrich fuel cycle.
[SPEAKER_00]: The minister's Washington Insider PhD Gabby Cook.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, people can understand no nuclear weapons, you know, you can't be doing nuclear weapons.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the vice president has actually put a little more meat on the bones, which I think is actually helpful when he says, you can't have nuclear weapons, and you can't have the tools that you need to build nuclear weapons, which includes enrichment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's a very easy way to explain it to people what our position is in negotiations versus theirs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And why theirs is an untenable position given that they're a terrorist sponsoring regime and have actually pursued nuclear weapons and long range missiles for many years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, okay, that's that's the piece on that there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But by the way, at some point, they might still have to give up at their basic economic collapse.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I recall our colleague Benham always quoting home any at the end of the Iran-Arak war of, you know, drinking from the poison chalice and having to explain to the Iranian people while he had to basically capitulate in the war.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this brings me to a fear that I have in anxiety, a warning, and it feeds into your question of what would you do if you were the regime right now, and then I think it leads to what we need to do preemptively, and that's the following.
[SPEAKER_00]: What has stopped the bombs?
[SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: It means the Iranian people might be coming out of their homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going
[SPEAKER_00]: at the same time that we've switched from epic fury to economic fury.
[SPEAKER_00]: That could be pretty dangerous for the regime.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we saw what happened in January.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we know that the Israelis have been targeting throughout epic fury, or for them roaring lion, the elements of the apparatus of repression and control heavy targeting of the MOS, the intelligence services, and the bussege.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of decapitations, a lot of checkpoints hidden.
[SPEAKER_00]: On clear how much of that target set they were able to get through before the ceasefire when they diverted back to industrial sites, knowing that a ceasefire deal might be coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't seen a call for the people to come back out into the streets.
[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't seen that for the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: To tell people to stay in their homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't seen that from Palavi who had said to do to have some message at some point, but people are still gonna come out.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just natural.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the regime has to be pretty afraid of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a pretty afraid of their people right now, seeing how weak that they are, how vulnerable they have been, how much has been destroyed, and now the economic pressure that will start hurting the people as well, and cause a lot of angst and anxiety and desire to come back on to the streets.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what would they do?
[SPEAKER_00]: I imagine they'll be doing two things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one.
[SPEAKER_00]: rationing and prioritizing the allocation of resources.
[SPEAKER_00]: The regime gets everything first, the people get things last.
[SPEAKER_00]: That creates more anxiety, that creates an exacerbation of the tensions between regime and society, not less at a time where they can ill afford that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thus, they also probably need to see if they can't reconstitute the repression apparatus as soon as possible and start mass arresting people and executing people and making people afraid to come out into the streets at this moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the people phase that has been anticipated that would come after the military operations is now something that's up in the air to jump off.
[SPEAKER_00]: But go back to this idea of prioritization, allocation of resources, the timeline that me I talked about, starting to run out of things, at what point aren't you making payroll, at what point do mid-level people not get the gasoline, or the paychecks versus the higher ranking officials?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there an opportunity in the next few weeks for us to move not just from epic fury to economic fury, but from epic fury to epic fracture?
[SPEAKER_00]: and to really think about how do we embrace empower and enable the people face, fracturing the regime further, based on the economic problems they will face.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then also empowering the people before the regime is able to reassert its repression apparatus and do unimaginable harm to the population.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's as usual, you brand things very well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the president would appreciate the branding.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, epic fury to economic fury to epic fracture.
[SPEAKER_02]: And also to think about this in kind of the four phases of military diplomatic economic and people phases.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to respond to that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there a possibility of leveraging everything that we're talking about in terms of the financial war?
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's admit it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The financial war also hurts the Iranian people, not just the regime.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there a way to leverage financial warfare to promote maximum fracturing of the support base of the regime?
[SPEAKER_02]: Are they creative ideas ways in which we can move money or release money or divert money to the right people and keep it away from the wrong people?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, one thing that I would share is
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I look back at my personal experiences that have been born and raised in your role with my family facing persecution and watching, you know, how regime operated and kept his hand over the society's police state.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, the reality is this regime came out of a revolution.
[SPEAKER_01]: Folks who took over this government a revolutionaries.
[SPEAKER_01]: For 47 years, they've focused more than anything else on how can they prevent a revolution from happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's their perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're really the export revolution, they protect the revolution, they create it strong on forces and name it Islamic Revolution in guard court.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no Iran in it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
[SPEAKER_01]: It is challenging.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a regime that is revolutionary proof like not proof, but it's going to be very tricky when it comes to the day that Iranians or there's another round of all price things in Iran.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's go back and look at January, what happened in January?
[SPEAKER_01]: Iranian regime is directly publicly killed over 40,000 people in course of like 48 hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the numbers are much larger than 40,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hear from Iran Iranians who reach out to me relatives, you know, some folks that have reached out to me from from inside the crew, internet comes and goes, some of them managed to get a star link and send messages out.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of people missing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, someone told me, hey, every family here either has lost someone or they have someone missing after the round of protests in January.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my point is, you have Islamic estate getting killed 40,000 people in 48 hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, these are numbers that we never seen, maybe other than Holocaust, you know, 40,000 people is this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is a revolutionary regime capable of doing what it takes to survive, to same power.
[SPEAKER_01]: and having a nuclear program.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, you know, I would compare this to having ISIS allowing ISIS to enrich uranium, you know, much is stronger terrorist organization that is the control of the state.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this, and economically, there's no clear enrichment program never made sense because you can go by and enrich uranium in the market much deeper.
[SPEAKER_01]: So at this point, they spent, you know, Muhammad Javasya, you've came out and publicly said that the Iran's nuclear program
[SPEAKER_01]: close to $1 trillion, you know, $900 billion, if they give up the enrichment program, then the legitimacy within that 10-15 percent supporters that they have in the country, that's just gone, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as far as frictions,
[SPEAKER_01]: and how this economic pressure campaign can lead to fractions, I think we are ready with a blockade.
[SPEAKER_01]: If there is an effective blockade in place, if there are some offensive cyber-offensive measures or deployed to cut off the banking system, you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: The Islamic Republic made a huge and strategic mistake in the past 47 years, and that is allowing the three southern provinces
[SPEAKER_01]: almost gone and we share to stay intact as three separate provinces with control over Persian Gulf, the entire oil industry, majority of petrochemical manufacturing sites are in these three provinces.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if the banking connection to these three provinces or cut off,
[SPEAKER_01]: then you have a population that has lost 90% of its purchasing power in the course of five to six years.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's probably that's numbers that come out of Tehran, one of the wealthiest cities.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at, I mean, if you go, I mean, if you look at the three provinces, one of the most, I mean, they're not, they have oil, they're old-rich, but they're not really doing great economically.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is where you're going to see labor strikes starting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think regardless of whether we have cyber-offensive measures deployed, this regime in a course of a few weeks, couple months, that would say probably three months of an effective blockade, it's not going to be able to pay.
[SPEAKER_02]: payroll, and by the way, that's the way that salaries for oil workers, and that salaries for security services, and that salary for bureaucrats.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that inability to actually pay the key people that are powering whatever's left of the economy and who a part of the repression apparatus.
[SPEAKER_02]: You may get true believers who are willing to fight and die for this regime, but you also may get a lot of people who say, I'm not even getting paid.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, why don't want to go on the street
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, they can keep printing real.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's an argument.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they can keep printing, but if they're not importing goods because of the blockade, then that doesn't mean English.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they can't read it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if they print real, then all that's going to happen is going to feed into this massive hyperinflation, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And for the collapse, the currency, which I think, but today is right at that 1.6 million.
[SPEAKER_01]: per the U.S. dollar and it was originally his own numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's probably way worse.
[SPEAKER_01]: One point six is what we're hearing, but could be, could be way higher than that.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, gentlemen.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's been a great discussion on Operation Economic Fury.
[SPEAKER_02]: Operation Epic Fractoring.
[SPEAKER_02]: and certainly Operation Epic Fury.
[SPEAKER_02]: The military, the economic, the financial, the diplomatic and the support that is so essential for the Iranian people.
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, both thank you for your service to our country.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for everything you've done.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think one day that it will be streets in Tehran named after both of you, everything you've done to help liberate Iran from the
[SPEAKER_02]: This is no longer just a war of missiles and militias.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a war of markets, currency, and survival.
[SPEAKER_02]: For decades, the regime weaponized its economy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Its oil, its geography, its access to global systems.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now that system is being turned against it, the question isn't just whether Iran can withstand the pressure.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's whether the regime can outlast the map.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks to me, Admiral Akin, which Goldberg for joining us.
[SPEAKER_02]: I marked UBWITS, and this is the Iran breakdown.
[SPEAKER_02]: Please join us for our next episode when we break it down all over again.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.