Middle East Roundtable: Economic D-Day

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the Middle East Roundtable. am Kyle Moran, filling in for Evan Maloney, who has once again been deployed to the field, this time to Syria, actually. we'll be getting to that in just a moment. am joined, as always, though, by my good friend Wilfred Beiner. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. How are you doing?

This has been something of an insane week.

The biggest story coming out of the Middle East this week is President Trump's decision to declare economic D-Day on Iran, basically further isolating them from the global financial system and promising that any country that gave them aid, allowed them to circumvent sanctions, basically allowed them to participate in the global economy, would feel America's

Wrath.

It's something we've seen from him in the past.

America has been conducting economic warfare on Iran for as long as most of us can remember, to some degree at least. But this feels like something much, much bigger, specifically because the UAE has waded into this conflict and is siding with Washington. And it has announced a halt to all trade with Iran.

This is something that I personally didn't see coming because the UAE has long been a major trading hub for Iran. And it's been key to Iranian efforts to evading global sanctions and all the global financial pressure that had been put on Iran.

And there are also rumors and ramblings within the intelligence community and within the kind of press and media that Kyle and I follow that the UAE was looking at a deal with Iran that will grant Iran more access to the money within the UAE system.

So for this to come out at this point, it's something that honestly, I personally didn't expect see. I'm going to read a tweet out from Hamid Reza Azizi. He's a PhD researcher and analyst on Iran and the Middle East.

He's an associate at Klingendale Institute.

So a very reputable think tank, it says that the view among Iranian analysts is that the UAE's decision to suspend financial interactions with Iran was not a response to recent missile strikes, but rather a decision that had already been in the making and was coordinated with the US to further squeeze Iran economically.

The same time that those within the Iranian strategic community who have long argued that Iran needs to take the initiative to reduce its dependence on the UAE because in their view, this dependence has proven to be a vulnerability that can be easily exploited. by the U.S. when push comes to shove. we're looking at situation where the U.S. has found one of

Iran's greatest vulnerabilities, and I think this might be the one.

Kyle, what do you think of the week that has just been?

Yeah, so the UAE is certainly going to be the story being discussed in inner circles inside the Islamic Republic right now because of just the outsized role that it plays financially. was the single biggest importer of Iranian goods, believe coming close to a majority of the total of Iran's imports, I should say.

So very big trading partner as well as exports. overall, this is going to be pretty big blow to the Islamic Republic's economy, which has already been in bad shape throughout this war as well as in the lead up to it.

Overall, I have to think that the fact that the UAE was in negotiations to whatever extent it was, the lead up to this shows they were willing to cooperate and on some level work with the new Islamic Republic that we have to deal with in the region.

But overall, I don't think the Islamic Republic has been very willing to play ball with just about anybody. of the things that they have done in Tehran, I should say, over the last few weeks and months have really just been a way to give a middle finger to the rest of the region.

The Emirates have been on the receiving end of like a huge disproportionate amount of Iranian strikes, which is particularly odd given the close economic relationship between the two.

And especially given how much of Iran's reserves are parked in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. So it's certainly not the smartest strategy by the Islamic Republic. I agree.

It's the smartest strategy by Iran to constantly antagonize the people holding on to their money. obvious question of why they were doing it. Right now, we know a lot more than we did at the start of the war, including that the UAE did launch covert strikes into Iran.

That could be a justification for what Iran did, at least within the minds of Iran's security industry, Iran's security infrastructure rather.

But still, you don't really antagonize the people holding your money.

One thing I do want to point out is that there has been a little bit of pushback, especially from The kind of people who have experience in both the Iranian and the Emirati financial markets, they're saying that this announcement by the UAE doesn't necessarily translate to a change in policy. this is from the New York Times.

They're reporting on the UAE cutting trade ties with Iran.

So a gentleman by the name of, and forgive me, I will definitely butcher this, Esfandiyar Batman-Gelich. He's the chief executive of the Bass and Bazaar Foundation. It's a London-based think tank focused on Iran's economy, expressed skepticism, saying that the announcement does not necessarily indicate a change in policy.

Instead, it could be seen as a moment of public diplomacy directed at the U.S., intended to signal that the Emirates is continuing to keep Iran at an arm's length because of how deeply interconnected the colonies of the two countries are, which is something Kyle has touched on.

Just to put some numbers to what you said, Kyle, trade between Iran and the Emirates was worth $28 billion in 2024. That's a lot of money going both ways.

So it is difficult to see how quickly the UAE will be willing to decouple its economy from Iran, given those close trade ties. So speaking of the economy, I want to take us to a statement that was made by Iran's central bank governor, Abdul Nasser Hemati.

He was speaking in a TV interview when he said that Iran's economy is at a much worse place than most people believe.

And he said that despite the MOU on the release of Iran's frozen foreign assets, nothing has so far been released and because implementation is currently suspended, nothing will be released. that economic and foreign exchange agreements must proceed in line with national interests and with the approval of the supreme leader, which is a position supported the

Entire government.

And more importantly, he acknowledged that Iran operating under severe foreign exchange and revenue constraints and lower oil exports have reduced state revenues, while tax revenues and social security contributions have also weakened. So the economic pressure on Iran is real.

And with Trump announcing his economic bidet, it feels like this might be the final blow that really gets the Islamic Republic to the negotiating table. What do you think of this, Kyle? Yeah. just a further quadrupling down by the new powers that be within Iran.

We've talked extensively on the podcast and on war fronts more broadly about the shift from the Islamic Republic being this sort of delicate balance between reformists and the hardliners, whereas now it's just almost exclusively hardliner.

That's where you really start to see this come to the forefront because in days gone by, there was genuine attention that had to be paid to the issues that the reformists wanted to bring, which included the economy. Now, I want to be cautious with just how much I actually impacted things from a domestic side of the equation.

The economy was in freefall before this war to begin with, so that says enough there. But it does have genuine impact on the foreign policy side of things. The reformists were far more willing to negotiate as well as to play ball with others in the region.

So especially when it comes to the Emiratis, these guys have just been taking absolute hardest line possible in response to Abu Dhabi and the rest of the region, especially in terms of Hormuz, as well as the continued missile on civilian well long time missile attacks on civilian infrastructure throughout the region as well.

It makes for a pretty bad neighbor status. And this cutting off of trade, I just have to see as the Emirates saying, you know, it's going to take a hit to the economy.

But you know what, we're done being bullied by these guys. really agree. Because you can't really have a neighbor whose economy you're basically propping up and they are constantly acting in a negative and aggressive way against you. That's not how a neighbor acts.

Especially not one that is really, really dependent on your economic support. And keeping to that idea of bad neighbors, the Iranian government isn't just bad to its neighbors, it's bad to its own people. Kali just talked about the reformist versus hardliner divide within the Iranian government.

And one place where we are going to see this is in how Iran absorbs the economic shock that comes with Trump's new trench of sanctions, his new economic policy against Iran. How likely are these sanctions to be passed on to the Iranian people?

How likely do you see the regime in Tehran passing on to the people yeah the iranian people i continue to have to say with no pleasure here this is with great sadness that i say this but they truly are the biggest losers of they have been just sandwiched between the two worst forces in the world right now so you have the extreme sanction impact that's

Hitting them as well as a government that literally has never cared less about their well-being because it look it's one thing after the war if iran wanted to really squeeze washington in terms of making sure that their security guarantees that their commitments to do such an operation again or however they would like to carry that out but tolls in hormuz

Have just been this thing that we cannot get past it's been something that you know instead of iran going for half the pizza or even three quarters of the pizza not only have they gone for the whole thing they've gone for the box the plates the table the chairs and the rug underneath the so i mean they really want the whole kit and caboodle here and it's

Really just not endeared them to anybody in the region so we have if we have seen if they're not willing to with people in the region for their own benefit they're certainly not going to be listening to the impact this has on their own people either and i really think that's where the biggest loss is you think this economic pressure and tehran's willingness

To pass it on to the average iranian will lead to protests like what we saw in december and early january i'm not sure we're going to see something like that again because iran has also learned basically all the wrong lessons from this so from the iranian hardliner perspective which again has never been more empowered the iranian mistake was not cracking

Down on the protest harder back in december because i don't think the united states would have been embarked on this had the massive protests broken not broken out and there not been that massive crackdown that killed as many as 000 in two days so from the iranian perspective had they just dropped the hammer back in december when it was a few protests it was

About economic stuff mostly involving bazaris in a few of the cities none of this would have happened and they never would have been attacked in the first place so from that perspective that's at the first time the trouble i think they're going to be very hard line on any protests throughout the country and it make a certain like from the regime's

Perspective rational sense to do so unfortunately I agree it makes there's a very rational case and again I want to insist our audience we're using rational the foreign policy geopolitical sense of it not as in we agree with this there is a very rational case to be made from the Iranian government point of view that the best path for the best path that

Ensures their survival is to be as hard line as possible and can just the Iranian people are going to suffer because of it's it's an unenviable situation and on and on that rational side of things I do have to wonder like I can completely see from the regime's perspective the security concerns both from protesters and the extent to which the U.S. may resume

Things in the future against it but what I have perhaps I perhaps own blind spots or perhaps I'm right on this after all is the lack like actual benefit that it gets from its maximalist approach to horror moves so overall the only thing it really gets from this is tolling funds which are significant but at the same time they are willing to risk massive

International sanctions could go on for years in exchange for that so if they had just abided by the MOU the original MOU which was extremely generous gave them 300 billion dollars of reconstruction aid or going to over the course of a few years as well unfreezing the entirety of their assets including in the in the Emirates right so all of this would have

Been just cash flowing into Iran and we were already seeing they were selling oil again and not even through their black their black fleet or black market fleet they were able to do it through legitimate international markets for the first time in ages and ages so I just I cannot see how this maximalist approach to Hormuz actually is rational for them but

I'm curious if you see something I don't actually I agree and you know before before we talk about Hormuz just something that occurred to me when you were talking about when you're building that picture of trying to take Hormuz like someone trying to rob a pizza with a box the plates the rugs the best rugs in the world are Persian rugs so yes eating pizza on

A Persian rug be careful Iran might be coming for a very interesting place for right now because iran has shown that it can exercise control over the street that's without question all it needs to do is have a few gc officials launch some drones strike a few ships and make insurers very cautious about traversing through the street and that will basically

Paralyze traffic through street but yeah as you rightly said this comes with so much international cost there's so many international sanctions there's so international pressure iran has basically being one of the world's biggest pariahs to the biggest pariah because of what it's doing in the street of humus and you know the impact it's having on global oil

Markets yes they can exercise control over it at what cost that's what i keep asking and you're right it's not a rational move especially the mou granted them so many concessions already but again i keep thinking about the mou and fact that the american version of the mou and the iranian version of the mou are so significantly different specifically on who

Gets to control the straight of humus because we can't sit here and say that iran had to implement that mou if we can't even agree on what was in the mou itself the iranian version said that it could keep control of the straight while the american version had a very vague language about who would control who would control the straight so again the mou being

Vague in that respect that was a very major failure by whoever was negotiating it but again i every time people are negotiating peace deal a lot is going on in the background so i've not you know worked in peace deal negotiations but i have spoken with lot of people who have been in those conversations most recently professor alex deval for the audio south

Podcast he was involved in very high level talks in sudan that basically midwifed the birth of south sudan so whenever people are in those conversations there's a lot that will get left on the cutting room floor just to get a deal that people can agree with people can at the very least compromise on so i think that was the best compromise that the us and

Iran had it's not a really really good compromise again it's the mou was from the beginning so keeping to the straight of humus i want to draw your attention kyle to a report by david goldman in CNN.

This was published yesterday with the title, Iran has lost significant control of the Strait of Hormuz, just in case anyone in the audience is curious to know what sources we're using. We'll hopefully include a link to this in the body after the transcript.

So this is something I'll be quoting from the CNN article. the moment, however, the evidence is clear, the United States patrolling the Strait with its navy is gaining ground and Iran is losing much of its control of the critical waterway.

More than 80% of liquids transiting through the Strait of Hormuz over the past two weeks have taken the Omani route, UN-authorized shipping channel that Iran vehemently opposes, or have been dark transits that likely took the Omani route, according to Kepler, which trouts ships using transponders and satellite data.

Iran, declaring the Strait under its control, has attacked dozens of ships that try to travel the waterway beyond the north coast of Oman.

Despite the risk, most ships have recently chosen to ignore Iran's demands and cross the Strait with the promise of protection from U.S. naval Homayun Falkashi, head of crude oil analysis at Kepler, it increasingly looks like Iran has at partially lost control of the Strait.

Kyle, what you think this? What do you make of this report? It's further evidence of what I've been talking about with some of the flaws in Iran's approach to So Iran absolutely nailed the drone asymmetric warfare in this campaign, no doubt about That's been the headlines ever since, and it really poked Washington in a bind.

But under the surface, there were also so many other things going on. In particular, the total free-for-all in terms of firing at every Gulf country across the region, including the ones that were negotiating on Iran's behalf in Washington before the war broke out, has not done them any at all. Including Oman.

They struck energy targets in Oman, as well as others throughout the course of this conflict. That has just fundamentally alienated the Omanis, at least to some extent. So we've seen for quite some time talks about Oman and Iran being in negotiations about tolls or whatever.

And Iran rejects Oman's version because Oman's has voluntary tolls in various different amounts and whatnot. But Oman has just fundamentally not been willing to sign up to really go at this with Iran.

And that is ultimately the outcome when you have country that's just continuously shooting at you who then says hey you want to join you want to partner up i mean who wants to enter into an alliance like that it's it's it was not well thought out and think the islamic republic is starting see that really come home to roost so there's whenever i write a video

For warfronts or homefronts or any of our properties i try to use the title the subtitle at least with friends like these because i feel like geopolitics is rife with so many incidents where someone claims to be an ally or tries to present themselves as a country worth allying with but they're generally not and in this case iran is the best example of it

Because as you've rightly said kyle who would want to enter into a partnership with iran who in which country in their right mind would want to partner with the country at least you know within the gulf that is in the middle east the country that is responsible for so much economic it's it beats all logic and to your point about iran continuing to be very

Aggressive partner very aggressive country in the middle east reuters had a report earlier this week on the 17th of august just to give our audience a temporal signpost we're recording this on the 20th of august so three days after the reuters report came out and it says iran will shift to a fully offensive military posture because efforts to negotiate a

Permanent end to war with the u.s have stalled senior iranian official told reuters on monday as washington ruled out extending a temporary ceasefire agreement so kyle and i have been speaking about the mou for the past like 15 minutes or so one of the key clauses in the mou was that it will last 60 days to give washington and iran time to negotiate time to

Find a credible way for a time to find a path to peace and that time frame those 60 days could be extended by mutual consent but given that the implementation of mou was suspended and tehran and washington aren't really talking to each other they're more like likely talking past each other you're given how far apart their demands are there was no way the mou

Implementation period was going to be extended so kyle what do you think of iran adopting even more aggressive posture you're shifting to fully offensive as the iranian official said what do you think of the mou implementation period passing with no interest i think it reflects the fact that neither side currently benefits from a full-scale return to

Conflict which the iranian officials might not be willing to publicly admit but i think it's pretty clear from both sides that a return to the massive firing of operation epic fury back in march is something either side is particularly eager to sign up for so you can really see i mean there's no technical ceasefire in effect anymore it expired but there we

Have not seen a return to conflict and i suspect that's why and i have to think that moving forward if iran can't get control of hormuz back at least partially it that may shift the calculus a bit but overall they have taken a substantial beating in terms of just the damage that the bombing campaigns have done mean they retain significant drone production i

Will say so they're in no way out but they down and again they may be willing to go into this long-term economic fight where they have long-term experience being on the receiving end of some of the harshest international sanctions imaginable but that's a separate story from surviving months more of various bombing campaigns and again the iranian people are

Would be at the forefront of that and the biggest losers in that situation unfortunately but unfortunately we may be headed back in that direction if iran feels hormuz is slipping out of his control the off-ramp there being if iran can simply come to the come to the table and recognize okay it does not need fully maximalist control over hormuz in order to

Move past this and get shipping moving again things could be back on but that's a big if and i think the people in charge are some of the people in charge they have one goal in mind they want to preserve the continuity of the regime they the revolution to continue they want the revolution that overthrew the shah to continue ruling iran the future doesn't

Matter who is at the helm as long as their loyalties lie with the revolution that's why they continue to maintain in such hard-line positions because, and this is a point I have made multiple times, is viewed, within Iranian circles at least, as nearly equivalent to the drone program, the drone and missile program that Iran has, its proxy network, and its

Nuclear program.

Items that are so vital to Iran's survival as a state that it is unwilling to make any compromises on it, but it might have to make a compromise because, you've rightly said, maximalist positions don't go anywhere, right?

You cannot win a war, you cannot execute a war where you're the weaker party by maintaining maximalist positions, and speaking of winning a war, one of the main Iranian officials, I believe it was Ghalibov, earlier this week said that Iran had won the war against the US and Israel.

This is something they've said many times, but what caught my attention at least is how he described victory, how the Iranian government is describing victory.

They said that America and Israel came into this war with nine key objectives, and they've so far failed to achieve any of them.

Now, while I wouldn't agree that America and Israel has failed to achieve every single one of their objectives, this is very broadly true that America had many objectives in mind that have not yet been achieved, and it might never be achieved, but that isn't a mission of victory. It's not something that any nation can be proud of.

It's a Pyrrhic victory, you know, just to throw in an atom that people familiar with the ancient Roman will be familiar with. So, hopefully, the people in charge of Iran do realize that they need to moderate their stance if this war is to end if there's to be a path forward. And there is hope, at least, in some that there could be some level of moderation.

So, there have been media reports that the Trump administration had opened back-channel discussions with the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and they set up a message pipeline to IRGC General Ahmad Vahidi, he's literally the top guy in Iran right now, you know, other than Moshtaba Khomeini.

If this is true, again, big if, this could be the best path that the U.S. has to achieving something that looks like peace. It might not work, given just how hardliner figure Vahidi is.

This is one of those instances where I wish Lajani was still alive and, you know, he was still at the forefront of the Iranian government. But Vahidi is the person in charge right now. He's the person that the U.S. has to negotiate with.

Kyle, what do you make of this back channel? Do you think it will be successful? Do you think it has any hope of actually working where the main diplomats have so far failed?

So when you mentioned Telsey Gabbard, and I know she's since stepped down, but I can't help but think she's one of my favorite people that I forget, like my favorite hobby is remembering that I have forgotten that she was part of the administration. I have not been a fan Gabbard for a long time.

And basically just chronically forgot that she was even a part of the administration for a long period of time, but especially given just how the foreign policy of the second Trump administration has shaped out.

I can't imagine she was very happy with it. But that point aside, I think it's going to be very interesting to see how that shapes up. I am not optimistic as to just how the current Iranian administration is to actually deal with that type of situation.

But to your point about Vahidi, I was actually reflecting back on this other day. I went and I was reading Vahidi's proposal, or excuse me, Larajani's proposals from before the war. And granted, I want to take this with more than just a few grains of salt, because the Iranians are legendary negotiators.

This truly their forte, and certainly not always the most honest in terms of what they promise versus what they're actually able to deliver. That said, Larajani was simply a different type of negotiator. He was a different type of Iranian leader.

And again, not a no saint by any stretch of the imagination. He was in no small part responsible for the crackdown that killed so many back in January.

Nevertheless, I have to wonder the whole point of taking him out was, because the person who replaced him, was significantly more hardline and he only lasted a few months and then they replaced that guy with Mohsen Rezaei who is even more hardline he was one of the founding members of IRGC back in 79 so I have to imagine if Larajani was still kicking today

The U.S. could be in a bit better position in terms of finding a way out of this thing well we play the cards we are dealt so the U.S. will have to play the cards it's dealt and you know that's that's just how life goes speaking of the U.S. let's shift to a bit more like that the topic Trump recently declared the Strait of Hormuz American territory tell us

About did he actually fully declare it or did he say he was going to declare it he said he was going to declare it something along those lines yeah okay I don't know if he's actually going to go through with that but look we have all been critical of various things this administration has done throughout its course in office on this podcast here but I have

To say the man has way with the man has a way with words that just I mean it will never be like this again in terms of just like waking up and you're like oh the U.S. is thinking about declaring Hormuz to be a territory now for what it's worth I mean I do not want more moves to be U.S. territory and I don't think just about anyone else does either but it's

Certainly a memorable part of this memorable is the right word because it takes me back to when he declared the Gulf of Mexico would now be called the Gulf of America and we all had to pretend like that was a thing but by the way so Apple different maps systems in this country still show that so Apple Maps and Google Maps both show Gulf of Mexico like it

Actually changed is that true yeah I'll send you a screenshot after our call here because for me as someone who's living outside of America I still see it as the Gulf of Mexico nearly every single map app I use yeah it only changed if you're inside the United States so like that for me is one of the most interesting things that Trump has done just his

Ability to label things and you know for the entire world to go along with it so what happened want to take you to the Iranian you know living the street of American territory Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Garibabaldi said that Trump's map was a delusion and that the president was a deluded man and threatened that, know, this particular delusion will

Be corrected.

It's something so insane to me, genuinely, genuinely very insane to me that the American president would be calling a piece a water body that is thousands and thousands of kilometers away from you in the nearest American territory, American territory.

And my favorite reaction this was someone who asked, what does this mean for Greenland, Canada, and Venezuela? Now, which one of the four, now that you have the state of Hormuz, will be the 51st state that will be added to the U.S.?

And if they become the 51st state, become before Puerto Rico, that will be tragedy. This, for me, is the finest. have any final thoughts on the state of Hormuz being American territory before we move on? to see if he goes through with it.

I am, I'm not holding my breath, but I'm also not ruling anything out with the current president. know, he is certainly willing to go in and say a bunch of stuff that goes nowhere or sometimes actually takes somewhere.

Remember, back in the early days of his second term, the U.S. was going to take over Gaza. stuff, it just, it doesn't go anywhere sometimes. So, I wouldn't be cashing any checks labeled U.S. territory of Hormuz anytime soon.

And it's funny you mention Gaza because we're going to be talking about a region, a country in the world that's very closely associated with Gaza. going to be talking about Israel next and what happened in Syria over the past few days. us through this.

You're our Israel guy. Take us through this.

Yeah, so I wrote a piece for Warfronts about a month ago now talking about the new Cold War in the Middle East being between Israel and Turkey. has aged, unfortunately, well in the past week because Israel has once again carried out an attack on a Syrian base that Turkey was allegedly eyeing to basically move into.

Turkey has denied lately that it's, it was actually planning on establishing a military presence there. saying they were just merely going to go in and help train the Syrian army and whatnot. honest, I'm not entirely sure who to believe there, but Turkey does have a very outsized influence in Syria.

They basically backed the HTS rebels from way before they took over the country.

And then when Shahraz done. marched into Damascus to the winter go the spoils and Erdogan was viceroy of Syria basically so very heavy Turkish influence over the country Netanyahu Israeli Prime Minister has increasingly been sparring with Erdogan over a number of things including Syria because both of them border Syria so it's sort of like this board buffer

Area where they're both fighting proxy wars Israel maintains a small occupying force in Syrian South and has repeatedly gone to battle for these Druze minority in the Sueda province overall just have to say this is shaping up to be a really big escalation and I'm not optimistic on where this is going to go and I both because the tensions between Syria and

Israel have been bubbling over the past few weeks a lot of people within the Israeli security establishment have basically been saying once the war with Iran is over once Iran is neutered and is no longer capable of posing a threat to Israel they will turn their attention to Turkey and it would be the main focus of Israel's Israel security agenda and you've

Been seeing it from statements by Israel's defense minister we've seen it from Israel's prime minister and this latest escalation in Syria is just a continuation of that so I just want quote something that Netanyahu said he said and I quote him here our message was very clear don't I guess they don't they didn't quite understand the message and you know this

Is about warning Syria not to allow a Turkish presence at their air base for me this is a big escalation for very little game question because Israel had been making genuine inroads as within Syria within you're trying to make them not a hundred percent of an ally you know they weren't going to send the Abraham Accords or anything but they were not

Necessarily antagonistic towards Israel but and you know this is statement that a Syrian source who's close to the regime told i24 news the more Israel threatens Syria the more Syria will align itself with Turkey and quoting him here Netanyahu's fall is only a matter of weeks and that the Syrian regime hopes hopes that the next Israeli government will be a

Lot what's the word, a lot less aggressive towards Syria.

So again, this is such a weird position that Israel has put itself in. So Kyle, you have a really good understanding of what's happening within Israel. Take us through, and I'm sorry I cut you off, you can make your point immediately, I'm done.

Take us through the thinking within Israel that led to this decision-making, to the decision to strike the Syrian airbase, because as you I were talking about this before we hit record on the podcast, it doesn't look like a purely security-centric decision.

Yeah, so a big aspect of this is Israel is staring down the barrel elections in October, and Netanyahu's coalition not looking as though it was polling too well. Now Israeli politics are absolutely wild, and parties come and go with a frequency that it makes them hard to keep track of, and people swap sides at all times.

Naftali Bennett, who is one of Netanyahu's more outspoken critics, was a longtime member of Likud himself, and was actually a part of this, he is a settler from the West Bank and has shifted to Bibi center and then back to his So it's just all over the place.

But in terms of what's going on with Turkey, what I argued in my Cold War piece in the Middle East is that Turkey and Israel are in very interesting situations relative to each other, because both of the countries have leaders who are not that popular, not hated, I would say like soft unpopular with their own respective populations.

And have intensely nationalist sentiments in the country.

So they're able to like almost use each other as the perfect bogeyman, where Erdogan can come out and say, Israel and Netanyahu is literally worse than Hitler, which he has said. And Netanyahu can come out and declare Erdogan to be a terrorist, which has also said. And basically just go through the sparring of words.

And what I also argued, at least for the short term, war between the two of them does not benefit either in any way, because for Turkey, the second biggest military in NATO, by the way. And they do have the alliance standing behind them if push comes to shove. But they're also not will like they're not in the F-35 program yet.

Their air missile defense systems is still in like it's still being built. So overall, it's not ready for the limelight. And overall, if they went to war with Israel, it would not go super well at this point.

Israel, for its part, is currently bogged down in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, to some extent the West Bank, with a remote outpost in Iraq as well, and variously engaged in Yemen, as well as Iran. So adding another country to that list is not in its interest, especially if it's anything like a big-scale war.

Overall, that means, thankfully for the time being, like a big, big operation between the two are unlikely, almost wonder if Netanyahu was like resting on that, because it's well regarded that the two of them aren't looking for all-out war, but I'm almost wondering if Netanyahu was like cashing that check by orchestrating this attack saying, "Okay, you know

What, Turkey and us, we physically like cannot fight a big war, so we can just start messing around in Syria and see where it goes, because we're ultimately going to have some Turkish restraint." And this is not the first time that's happened, by the way.

They've done that to several other bases, Syrian bases throughout the country that the Turks were looking to move into, which just does not bode well between these two countries.

And especially once we start kicking this can the road more, the argument that all-out war, or even some form of war, especially via proxies in Syria, doesn't benefit either side, starts to fall apart once Israel is no longer bogged down in quite so many other conflicts, and once Turkey has really built up its military industrial base even more.

One thing that do want to point out, especially as we discuss Turkey's defense industrial base, has some of the most advanced drone systems in the world, and it's one of the few countries whose drones have seen actual combats.

They've been used everywhere from Sudan to Congo, basically everywhere there is a war, there could be a Turkish drone there. I bring this up specifically because has really struggled to contain Hezbollah's drones.

So if a war between the two of them broke out, yes, Israel might have air superiority because it has better jets, it's part of the FW5 program, which Turkey is desperate to get back into, but Turkey has a ton of drones and the expertise really, really use them to make it hurt.

And of course there's the question of NATO as beyond NATO, there is the question of a peace deal, not a peace deal rather, a defense deal, That's Turkey signed recently with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan that could be activated in the event of further aggression from Israel.

So this is something that's extremely interesting to me because when Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed their initial peace deal, initial defense deal, rather, I'm thinking so much of peace deals this week.

When they signed their initial defense deal, this was when, sometime last year, around August, September, but it was just after Israel had struck Qatar, there was a lot of discussions about whether this could be that Pakistan-Saudi Arabia deal could be foreshadowing the creation of an Islamic NATO.

And with Turkey joining Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in their agreement, they outrightly said that this will be a mutual defense pact with a NATO-style agreement between the other three nations.

And it's, they're calling it the MECA joint defense argument. just going to keep referring to it as the defense deal. such an important document because Israel has nuclear weapons. They might publicly deny it, but everybody agrees.

The country in this deal that has nuclear is Pakistan. So is Pakistan going to extend its nuclear umbrella to Turkey in case of a war? You know, that's always been a question that lingered over such deals.

The first deal, there was the question of whether Pakistan will extend its nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia.

So now with a nuclear umbrella of its own and drone technology equal to, if not, you know, better than what other countries have, does have, you know, a bit of an edge that it didn't have heading into this confrontation. what did you make of the Saudi Arabia-Pakistan-Turkey deal? Yeah, so the nuclear question is fascinating to me as well.

I was listening to a podcast from Al-Monitor the other day where they were speaking with a Pakistani diplomat whose name I can't quite remember right now. But they were, this man was going off about how if Israel attacks Saudi Arabia, that Pakistan would be willing to enter the fray with all means available. I mean, just not holding anything back.

But, and we honestly could see something like that. I don't think Israel has any intention of going after Saudi Arabia. There would be nothing to be gained there.

And actually, to the contrary, they're very eager to get Saudi to, move towards the normalization process, which I'll get to that in a sec. But overall, the alliance already has issues. So Turkey has come under a few attacks by Iran, but Saudi Arabia has come under a lot.

And Pakistan has not a friendly relationship with Iran, but they have a relatively cordial one. They've been overseeing the negotiations as mediator. So overall, it puts the alliance in a difficult position because their members are already under attack.

So how do they respond to that? And Pakistan is fundamentally not willing to go to battle against Iran, at least not at this time. So I think it has to be seen as something that is more aspirational in terms of where it could go, because it can't really answer all of the conflicts going on in the region right now.

But to the Saudi normalization point, is something that actually makes conflict with Turkey a bit less likely, because now that they're in formal defense agreements with each other, if Israel does go up against Turkey, which we've certainly seen over the last few days, it's going to only further alienate the Saudis, who had been prior to October 7th, moving

In a direction where they were warming up normalization.

But overall, if we keep going in this route, where Israel is combating their allies, that's not going to go anywhere. And I think that might ultimately be a bit of a saving grace for the region.

One thing that I keep thinking about whenever the Abraham Accords are brought push to have Saudi Arabia normalize its relationship with Israel is the question of nuclear power.

So the Trump administration granted Saudi Arabia broad access to nuclear technologies before Trump said that it will be tied to Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, which appeared be something that Trump just made up in the heat of the moment, because of pressure from Israel. the push to get Saudi Arabia and Israel at least a level of stability in their

Relationship is so important to the Middle East that is that if Israel does ruin it because of the internal politics happening within the country or any other reason or Netanyahu's broader ambitions, it will be seen as one of the biggest foreign policy blunders at least in my lifetime from Israel's point of view I think it might happen though because we've

Already seen the same thing go on with Syria Syria was moving towards warming of relations especially given so Bashar al-Assad was a Baathist very nationalist guy very anti-Zionist so very hostile to Israel very pro-Iran the fall of Assad opened a window through which Shara could move and I want to use the terms carefully here this man was not going to

Waving the blue and white over Damascus anytime soon but he was willing at least ostensibly to move in a less hostile direction towards Jerusalem but Israel has basically just said you know what like it's not worth it we're going to pursue this other stuff for short-term gains and have to imagine the polling of Netanyahu's coalition weighs on some of that

Especially given the upcoming election and we can see that the various Israeli ministers have just been taking some of the hardest lines imaginable on this so Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said to Erdogan you are dragging Turkey into dangerous adventures in Syria Israel will not allow any actor to threaten its security or one would be better off

Continuing his detached fantasy driven rhetoric against Israel in the Turkish parliament than testing Israel's resolve to defend itself but this opens up another can of worms this the idea that just self-defense extends to some of the most this is almost like Iranian level of definitions of self-defense where they're claiming all of Hormuz all of this stuff

As their natural right and Israel seems to be moving in somewhat of a similar direction again the question that I asking about Iran who wants to enter into an alliance with those guys I mean if you're as if you're in Shara's government I mean who wants to enter into the country that just keeps bombing you they bombed the Ministry of Defense in the math in

Downtown Damascus last summer so it's just not a sensible move in my opinion overall I think it's also doing damage to the idea of self-defense by Israel get don't get me wrong there are serious security threats Israel in the region that warrant responses but when you define absolutely everything as inherently self-defense including a sovereign country if

The government in Damascus and the government in Ankara enter into some agreement where Turkey helps train the Syrian forces or any variation But that not Israel's right to just step in and say, actually, we don't like that, especially given that Israel is occupying parts of the Syrian South and has repeatedly intervened against Syrian forces to basically

Carve out Sueda province as a semi-autonomous region. self-defense.

That's a very maximalist approach that they're trying to sell as self-defense.

I like that topic of self-defense very much, Kyle, because there's usually a hesitancy to criticize Israel's actions, especially within the Western foreign policy intelligentsia, basically the side of foreign policy that we are on, because we do understand, as you've rightly said, Israel faces a lot of enemies on all sides.

And it has a lot of claims, genuine claims to self-defense. there's been a rising tide of anti-Semitism, so we genuinely do not want to contribute to it. want to have this conversation in good faith.

Not everything that Israel claims is self-defense is self-defense, and you're constantly, continuously, you're claiming that all of their actions are being taken in self-defense gives ammunition to Israel's enemies and the people who want to see Israel fall as a country.

It gives them ammunition to say, look, Israel is bad actor, Israel is a negative actor, Israel is a country doing things that if any other American ally were doing, it will be criticized for. And yes, it does deserve to be criticized for bombing a sovereign nation and you're occupying its territory, because self-defense can only go so far.

It's genuinely very baffling for me to see Israel risk so much credibility for something that has very little game. an aggressive move, it's a provocative move, and all it does is just give ammunition to Israel's enemies to say, hey, we're serving you this on a silver platter.

It's honestly not something, you know, to be proud of, like, as your foreign policy. Yeah, and I, it's divided the United States, including this administration. So for what's worth, we only found out about this strike especially the extent to it by.

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barak, who posted on X saying, we are deeply concerned that the confirmed Israeli airstrikes on Abu al-Daherb airbase constitute an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability. And it goes on to say, the Al-Shara government has neither adopted a predatory posture nor maintained proxy forces.

So the United States continues to believe that restraint and engagement offer the more constructive course.

We encourage all parties prioritize logical discourse over further military incidents. A very sensible post, if you ask me, but this certainly set off a firestorm with some. So if you look at Senator Rick Scott from Florida, he posted the story saying, it's clear Israel gave Turkey advanced warning and Ankara ignored it.

Israel has the right and duty to defend itself from threats. Turkey needs to stop playing around, stop shilling for terrorists and start acting like the NATO, in quotes, they pretend to be. And these are very different takes.

Now, obviously, Senator Scott is not part of the administration, but that view is held by many in the administration. So we're in this very awkward situation where many of the US diplomatic people in the region are almost with Turkey on this, whereas the more pro-Israel caucus, especially in Congress, is completely siding against them.

And again, just the framing here is crazy to me.

So Israel gave Turkey advanced warning and Ankara ignored it. First off, that's disputed. So we don't know that for sure.

But even if that is true, Turkey obligation to simply obey everything that comes out of Netanyahu's mouth. If Israel orders Turkey to evacuate from Syria, it does not have to do that. And failure to comply with that does not justify bombing either Syrian forces or Turkish forces.

And to be clear, this most recent strike did kill or injure anybody. believe the base was completely unoccupied, but it's still damaged the extensively. So overall, it just raises the question of like this That just about justifies anything.

It's certainly not polling well on the left So I just, I have to question where this, where this ultimately goes, and I sincerely think it's doing damage to claims of legitimate, otherwise legitimate self defense by Jerusalem.

Kyle, you have a video out on home fronts and war fronts, you know, once we do these collaborative pieces between our two channels talking about how young people in the U.S. are moving away from Israel because, you know, a plurality of its actions. Do you see this contributing to people moving away from Israel in any meaningful way?

I mean, this one is going to be relatively neat because I don't think a lot of people in the States actually really know that this happened. wasn't widely covered, but it's part of just a broader theme.

So for many years, especially boomers and Gen X grew up in this like very unique time where Israel was already established, already a state, but it the underdog in the region, essentially. It was coming under threat, especially there was the 67 war as well as Yom Kippur.

So it was, it was seen as constantly under threat and, you know, just fighting for its existence.

So they, that's the Israel that like they got to know, but the Israel that young people have grown up with is just like completely different. They're the great power in the region.

So when it comes to that, it, when you see just these ongoing series of escalations by Jerusalem that increasingly target things that are not threats to Israel and that Israel does have the right to just step in and say, actually, you can't do that.

And that's, that's, that's, it does not pull well. that all of it's self-defense just, I mean, it lands like a, like a lead brick or like a, like a heavy rock. It just, it doesn't go over well at all. And this is probably, you've rightly said it's niche stuff that you're only people like you and me interested in because this is our livelihood.

We cover this type of stuff for a living, but this is coming at one of the worst possible times for Israel, specifically because of the Hind Rajab case.

If you're not familiar, Hind Rajab was a five-year-old Palestinian girl who was sadly killed in, you know, one, one of the most devastating incidents in the Israel-Hamas war. was in January, 2024. in a car and it was fired upon more than 300 times.

One commentator I've seen said the car was hit with 355 bullets and for the longest time, Israel and its defenders have claimed that the IDF did nothing wrong in that instance, but yesterday. the Israeli military acknowledged that they did fire on the car carrying Hendra jab.

And that has caused such a massive outpouring of just anger and grief among people online, on Twitter, Reddit, basically every social platform that I've seen.

So this combination of Israel's actions within Syria, within the war in Gaza, against people that right now are the underdogs, to borrow a phrase from Kyle, is just pushing the world away from Israel, which I don't think is what anyone, at least within Israel, wants.

Yeah, the Gaza thing is something that really made inroads with the American public more broadly. the right have diverged over variously different issues in this country.

Gaza really caught flame on the left, especially just the footage coming out, you can see on TikTok and whatnot. has, to some extent, done the same on the right here. There are also other factors. So just like the whole more push towards decoupling from international alliances.

U.S. does a lot of heavy lifting for Israel. like, OK, well, what does the United States actually end up getting from this? And there isn't really like that inherent of a great answer to it. I mean, there is a lot of intelligence sharing for sure.

But beyond that, we used 25% of our entire SAAD missile defense system stockpiled to shoot down Iranian missiles inbound to Israel during the 12-day war of last summer alone. That was before this Operation Epic Fury kicked off, just to be clear. So, I mean, this is massive amounts of support that have been used for Israel.

And it's just, it raises a question of like, why? start seeing like, OK, well, now Israel is bombing Turkish or wannabe Turkish positions in Syria. And the, again, Rick Scott coming in, and he's, I'm not trying to exclusively single out Scott. He's hardly alone here.

But I just saw that post and it sort of resonated with me that is a position that it just lands differently for younger people. It's, including those who are not, have no animosity towards Israel. It's just inherently like, why?

This is not, obviously not self-defense, you know? Agreed, agreed. It lands so badly.

And again, I keep using this phrase because this is what I genuinely believe. It's a failure of foreign policy. people within the Israeli policy establishment, within the foreign policy establishment, need to do better.

Because if they lose the U.S., and it's looking increasingly likely, just given how far away the Democratic Party is moving from Israel, and how far away segments the Republican Party are moving from Israel, it's looking increasingly likely that they will, at the very least, lose a huge chunk of support. you need friends to survive, especially like Israel,

When it's surrounded by so many enemies.

You can't keep antagonizing the world. Exactly. And even a majority of young Republicans under, I think it's under 34 or around that age, have a negative view of Israel at that point.

I mean, that's shocking. years ago, you would have been crazy if you had been saying something. People would have thought you were crazy if you said something like that. we're just a totally different world now. Agreed.

Again, Israel just needs to do better on its foreign policy. So we're going to move away from Israel to our final topic of the day, Yemen, the Houthis, and Saudi Arabia. what's happening there? ongoing series of unfortunate escalations, essentially.

So the Houthis have become increasingly emboldened by Iran's success at basically holding the world hostage over Hormuz.

Which is one of the reasons I was arguing that the blockade in Hormuz, if the U.S. withdraws from that and just calls quits, like that would be such a green light to the Houthis as well as others. So they have been, they were striking various Saudi energy targets, both in Jizan and Yanbu.

Yanbu is the end point of Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline that has allowed Riyadh to basically bypass Hormuz to some extent, from which they ship north through Suez, but to go south, to get to Africa and Asia, to go through basically along this very narrow body of water running right alongside Houthi-controlled areas.

So this conflict has not abetted at all, and it concerns me where that ultimately is going to go, because if Iran is able to hold out in Hormuz and the Houthis are able to implement Tothis, in the Bab al-Mendeb, which they have been reportedly moving in the direction of. that's two out of the three. that gets me back to the whole Suez maxing situation that I

Put in a video few weeks ago. cannot handle all that volume, especially for countries that are not through the northern route.

That's going to be much more timely and much more costly to get crude oil and other goods shipped out there.

Again, that's the Middle East for you. you have one crisis and it's just going to be contained here? spirals out of control and now we're talking about just how little oil can go through the Suez Canal. it's just a bad situation. that, we're going to end the podcast there.

We're coming up on our time. But before we do that, Kyle, what are you watching this week? honestly, I want to keep... I know that's very vague, but I want to keep tabs on what's going on between Israel and Syria with Turkey.

And then certainly what's going on in Hormuz, which is basically just a stalemate at this point. be bogged down there for quite some time to come. then in addition to that, there's also the situation in Lebanon that I continue to follow. Again, this is kind of a total stalemate at this point.

So keeping my radar tuned to all of these different conflicts to make sure I don't miss anything coming out of them.

I am basically doing the exact same thing. Just watching the entire region to see which fires are starting up, which fires are being put out, and which fires are just in a holding pattern. Because, again, I'll say this again and again and again.

That is the Middle East for you. who's listened to us this far, you're more than likely a premium subscriber to France.co. And if you are, thank you much. We can't do the job we do without you guys.

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So with that, we're going to end it here for Kyle. Fred. This has been the Middle East Roundtable.

We'll catch you next week.