Middle East Roundtable: Insider Trading, Ceasefire Fading.

Wilfred W.: Evan. I have tattoos to commemorate my time in those deep bunkers in a country whose name we shall continue to keep secret to protect our sources. Evan Moloney: I was hoping for a big reveal, but that's all right. Kyle Moran: Maybe next week. Wilfred W.: Next week.

Wilfred W.: I want to say I agree with Kyle, and it's so wonderful to be back with you guys. Just wanted to shout that out. But yeah, it's very tempting from an American perspective to believe that further air strikes, a further bombing run would cause Iran to make more concessions.

But I don't really think I agree with that idea because how much more pain can you inflict on Iran without necessarily just taking out the entire country? And at that point, we're looking at a situation where regime change is a lot more preferable than continuing to mark time with the same guys just marching in place.

So it might be tempting for Washington to think that a continued bombing run would yield more concessions from Iran, but I don't see that happening, at least not in the short term.

The blockade of Hormuz might have a bigger impact just in terms of economic pain and the impact it has on Iran's ability to export its oil and actually mine the oil that's coming out of its oil wells without the oil wells being shut down. That might have a bigger impact than just a return to bombing.

And yeah, the Wall Street Journal, as Kyle has mentioned, the Wall Street Journal did have a statement that has gotten a lot of attention that several Gulf officials from some of the countries Trump mentioned in his post on Truth Social said they were not aware of any imminent plans to attack Iran.

So it could be a situation where Trump is using the threats of attack as a sort of mallet to remind Iran, 'Hey, American bombs can drop on you guys at any second' rather than an actual dedicated serious plan to go back to bombing.

And here we are making those starts again, drawing back from the brink of conflict again supposedly.

Wilfred W.: So I have a video coming out around tomorrow... Wilfred W.: which will be a collaboration between war fronts and home fronts. Please check it out. It's discussing a concept in diplomacy that I find extremely interesting. The idea of soft versus hard power. In that video, I talk a lot about America's soft power declining.

But for this, I want to talk about America's self-belief in their hard power and the belief that American military can overcome any enemy at any time. And that's why we see the US making these threats that Iran will be destroyed, Iran will be taken back to the stone age, there'll be one big beautiful blow coming from Thran.

Wilfred W.: These are all things that Trump has said.

And I might have paraphrased along the way because I don't obviously remember every single thing he said, but it's just this sheer belief that that makes And because America's military is oodles of times so much stronger than Iran, it's this belief that that will eventually force concessions from the Iranian government.

Wilfred W.: And I think that's such a fundamental misunderstanding of how Iran views its own military strength because Iran does know that America and Israel in this case are much stronger than it.

But it has the ability to draw this out much longer than both countries can seemingly particularly in the US with the rising gas prices and the midterms being projected to go horribly for the Donald Trump's party. That fundamental miscalculation between America and Iran just on the nature of America's hard power and America's willingness to use it.

I think that it's just an attempt by Washington to remind

Wilfred W.: We can drop bombs on you at any time. Like I just said previously, it's an attempt to get concessions and it's not going to work.

And I only want to ask is it true that there is zero cost there or does it matter to be showing from the US perspective that hey when we come to an impasse the thing that we have to revert back to is these empty threats right to establish this cycle of just drawing back visibly pretending to draw back from the line if we can consider that this is a bluff…

Wilfred W.: I do want to add something that I saw on Twitter. It's taco Tuesday every day until it's not taco Tuesday. Basically, Trump will make these threats that he's going to attack Iran, he's going to do this, he's going to do that. And people like us, we've been following Trump basically since his first presidency.

We can easily dismiss, what we consider a bluff until it gets to a point where you follow through with a threat. And I don't think it does damage American credibility as such because even with Trump chickening out, there's always going to be that notion in everyone's mind, America has the single most powerful military in the world.

00:15:00

Wilfred W.: There's no point in antagonising them unless you're Iran or North Korea or someone on the other side of the world not world rather someone on the other side of the aisle of that conversation. America's military might isn't in question. It's just a Trump tactic to be as ambiguous as possible to keep everyone on their toes…

Wilfred W.: until he actually does do something.

Wilfred W.: One thing I do want to add is that there have been accusations that the Trump administration is using these market-moving announcements to influence how sorry can I take it again?

Okay, three, two, there's also something I want to bring up this idea that the Trump administration is using these proclamations that President Trump is making on Iran, this announcement that war will resume. We're back to, a situation where oil is going to not flow at all through Hormuz.

And, right now we are at a situation where oil flows through Hormuz are at all-time lows, but stuff is flowing.

Wilfred W.: There is an opinion that Trump is using that chaos to manipulate stock markets and make money not just for himself but also for you people with ties to the Trump administration with ties to his family. And I don't have any insights on this. I am not claiming that President Trump is doing this.

I'm not claiming that any insider within his administration is doing this. But it is something definitely worth noting that every single time President Trump makes an announcement on Iran, there are massive trades that have been placed just minutes before with people who seemingly have an insider knowledge of you what President Trump is going to say.

Wilfred W.: And the simple fact that this really isn't receiving that much attention outside of your financial press is concerning in and…

Wilfred W.: of itself because it's emblematic of the kind of corruption we've seen throughout the first Trump administration and has become more widespread in the second Trump administration.

It hasn't gone anywhere because Congress needs to strip itself of the ability to do this.

Kyle Moran: I am not optimistic that it will pass, and I don't even necessarily know which side of this I come down on because on some level, like banning people from making stock market trades based on information that they may have, it seems to me to be a legal grey area in terms of infringing on people's economic freedom on that front.

But in terms of congressional trades, some of them have been egregiously bad, others have been not as bad in terms of various people. So both on both parties, Nancy Pelosi being like the queen of Wall Street insider memes, if you ever take a look at some of those, she has this incredible reputation because she has outperformed the S&P. 00:20:00

Wilfred W.: I do want to point out that from my perspective, members of Congress should be trading stocks. I do not think the president should be trading stocks. I don't think anyone in government should be using the privileged information that they have to make money.

Because if the three of us had a company, let's say we called it our organisation, and we are trading stocks based on insider information that we would go to jail. Why is Congress any different? Kyle Moran: It isn't. So the problem being here is what counts as insider information.

So for instance, if somebody has let's say the stock market was around before the internet. So somebody just being in New York at that time had an inherent insider advantage over somebody in Florida because it would take somebody in Florida a week or a few days anyway to hear about something that happened with a company.

Kyle Moran: And then by the time they put in a trade, especially if you go back before phones, they would have to physically mail orders to New York to Wall Street. So therefore, people in New York just had this geographic insider advantage where they had insider information before people outside.

And the further you get away from New York, the more disadvantaged you are. So to me, this is sort of like saying because the people in New York have such an advantage over the people in Florida that people in New York should not be allowed to buy stock until everybody knows at the same time.

I don't think that that's really legal and I don't necessarily know it should be either.

Wilfred W.: I disagree with that because we're comparing distance and time before the internet to a time when, let me give our audience a bit of a brief on how a lot of trades are executed on Wall Street. Right now, we're at a time when computers are so fast that most trades are not executed manually.

We no longer have a situation where unless you're a retail trader, a single person is sitting down looking for the exact right moment to buy a stock or sell a stock. It's all algorithmic. Wilfred W.: There are so many bots that do this.

So we can't in light of that compare a situation where I wanted to say hundreds of years ago and I realised that that's not accurate. Let's even say 30 years ago when the internet wasn't as widespread and information transfer wasn't happening as fast.

That's why you have stuff like the Bloomberg terminal which was created specifically to solve this issue of how fast information was travelling between stock brokers around the world. And I'm getting on a tangent. Let me just get back to my main point here. 00:25:00

Wilfred W.: You can't compare a time when people didn't have access to information because as you've mentioned geography and the internet wasn't really a thing when the internet is a thing. Everyone has access to information at roughly the exact same time. I have traded stocks. I have worked at a stock brokerage.

It's crushing work and that's why I am here doing you a podcast with you guys today because I much prefer talking about the Middle East and every other single region we cover.

But you can't compare a time when people didn't have access to information now and to people who have access to information that can shape how markets move. Let me give you an example, right? Wilfred W.: If Trump knows for a fact that he's going to promote a company because Trump has done this. I believe it was Palantir, if I'm not wrong.

He specifically promoted Palantir and even mentioned their stock ticker, which was the very first time an American president had promoted a company with its stock ticker in his personal social media messaging.

And it came out that Trump had bought Palantir stock just weeks before, and after his post on Truth Social, the stock went so high – I might be misremembering this – but he made a profit of more than 90% just from a single post.

So if someone has the ability to influence markets to that degree and they're actually using that to make money, Wilfred W.: Isn't that unfair to everyone else? The Trump example is a bit extreme. Let's look at members of Congress. If someone is in a defence committee, for example, right?

They have access to information about defence contractors that most people won't have. They have the ability to use that information to again make money. So, that idea of privileged information is what I'm trying to get at here – that some people have access to information that nobody else can have simply as a result of the position they hold.

Kyle Moran: Sure. Wilfred W.: Not because of any geographical advantage, not because of any inherent internet advantage. It's just they only know this because they work in Congress or because they work for the president. Kyle Moran: I mean, I do get that the geographic thing is not a perfect analogy.

I use it as a philosophical exercise to show how this sort of information has never been as equal as people may make it out to be.

Kyle Moran: But that notwithstanding, something that I would very much be in favour of is making it so that congressional trades and any public staffer or whatever has to disclose them immediately, maybe within 24 hours, because right now they have to do it within I think 30 days, but then they have very minimal fines for the next 30 days after that.

So, a lot of times you don't even hear about it for two months. By that point, it's long gone. But I'll use this case as an example as to why that might not be as advantageous for the American people as you may be making it out. Kelly Loughler, I don't know if you all remember – she was a brief senator from Georgia.

She was the queen of it, if Nancy Pelosi was the House version, Kelly Loughler was the Senate version. Kyle Moran: So, back during when COVID was first coming out, she was a huge COVID sceptic. She's like, 'This is fake. This is not going to be anything.' Blah, blah, blah.

Meanwhile, she was dumping her stocks left and right because she was in these government briefings and she knew damn well it was going to be a huge thing. And she was lying to the American people. And you know what? She wasn't putting her money where her mouth was.

If the American people could see that in real time, actually she's selling all of this stock because she knows that this is going to be a big deal. That completely exposes her for having lied about these things. And I think that that is a type of transparency a lot of Americans would appreciate. 00:30:00

So, okay, we don't want to ban people from trading, why not just put all their money into an ETF or an index fund? That's simple as that, if the American economy is doing well, let's pick something simple - the S&P 500, the Dow Jones.

If the American economy is doing well, and if the executive is acting in the best interest of the American people, those index funds usually go up. What will incentivise the congressional leaders, Wilfred W., to do well if their money isn't tied up in those kinds of index funds? And it automatically removes the whole idea of insider trading.

Let's just put our money in an index fund. That's my proposal.

So, on that note, just to point out that the finance questions that are swirling around this conflict, especially given the Trump family's proximity to nations that are pretty deeply tied in with all of this, the Emirates, be even the rival government in Libya, not the internationally recognised one, but the one under Khalifa Haftar, which the Trump

Administration has gotten a little bit cozier than we might have expected.

They are clearly enjoying connections with all sorts of folks around the world who are deeply enmeshed in this sort of thing. So, as we move on, something to keep an eye on. Not necessarily that we're going to get any answers from it unless you can move faster than regulators, which if you're listening and you can do that, let us know.

We would love to talk about how we can parlay your services into some work with France.

I do want to move on to Iran, however, because the US was not the only nation making grandiose threats today or yesterday. So, this morning, as of the time that we're recording, the IRGC, essentially threatened to extend the Middle East conflict beyond the region if the US and Israel were to resume attacks against Iran.

Wilfred W.: So I want to start this response by saying a couple of weeks ago, I think it was two or three weeks ago, I did a segment on the briefing room, which I hope everyone who's listening to this catches, talking about a group in the UK called Hay, which stands for Harakat Ashab Alamin al Islamia.

And apologies if I am butchering any pronunciations there - Arabic is not one of the languages I speak. But it's a group that since March, basically, has been conducting low-level, low-grade kind of violence throughout the UK and in other countries in Europe, including the Netherlands.

And their most brutal attack to date has been a stabbing attack, which saw two men injured. This tells me that Iran has already worked to expand the war far beyond the region, as Hay has been identified as an arm of the IRGC's Quds force, which handles their international partners and international proxies.

And what makes Hay really difficult to handle is the fact that they don't use ideologically hardened operatives - the kind of people you would expect to align themselves with the IRGC and can be easily identified as a threat. Instead, they use people with criminal backgrounds who are just looking to make a quick buck.

This has made it extremely difficult to constrain. So, that alone, the fact that Iran has activated Hay as a terror cell, is proof that they have the capability to expand the conflict far beyond anywhere where you would expect it to be. And they're doing this with very little risk to the IRGC itself.

None of the people who've been arrested have any direct links to the IRGC. They have no direct links to Iran, and they're disposable, which is a whole new way of thinking about your asymmetric threats.

Wilfred W.: So, yes, Iran does have the ability to expand this war. And I do want to insist here that so far, all the attacks that this group has carried out have been low-level, low-grade kind of violence. None of them have involved a firearm. None of them have involved what we traditionally expect of a terror attack.

So, if Iran is serious about this threat, we could be seeing a lot more violent attacks that use firearms, etc., throughout Europe, if that's the route they decide to go.

As we've seen with their neighbours, it hasn't worked for them at all in terms of regional attacks,…

Wilfred W.: As you guys have said, if Iran chooses to attack the undersea cables, then it will probably have a lot more success than in attempting to extend the conflict to the wider region.

I do want to point out here that to me specifically, Iran's threats of attacking the undersea cables are very reminiscent of what Russia has been threatening throughout Europe as a whole, and it points to the ever-growing links between the two regimes.

We've known for a long time that Russia has been aiding Iran through the provision of satellite images, through the provision of intelligence. Wilfred W.: But if Russia is providing Iran with the technical know-how of how to attack these undersea cables, I'm not saying that Iran didn't have it on its own.

But if Russia is, the one that is providing the capabilities, the equipment, the know-how to do this, then that will be a very big escalation on Russia's part.

Wilfred W.: So as someone who lives in Kenya, this is a question that is extremely pertinent to me because there was that fear very early within the very first days of the war that the situation you described could happen, that Iran could turn its attention towards bases within the global south that aren't necessarily as well protected as your bases

Elsewhere.

And I do want to preface this by saying I have had a couple of conversations with the Iranian ambassador to Kenya ever since the war began. There has been a deterioration in the relationship between Kenya and Iran, not necessarily because of Kenya's ties to the US but because of other economic issues, specifically tea exports.

Wilfred W.: So with that in mind, there is a very real fear still among the Kenyan people that Iran could execute such an attack. But the Iranian ambassador told me that such an attack isn't on the cards. And obviously, there's no way in hell he was going to tell me, Wilfred, we're going to attack all the bases in Nairobi.

There's no way in hell he was going to tell me that. But I don't necessarily see it as something that Iran is going to do. Iran, even with the context of the sort of geopolitical beef between Kenya and Iran, the two nations enjoy really close ties. And I'm focusing on Kenya because that's the relationship I know best.

Wilfred W.: I don't necessarily know how Iran relates with other countries in the global south. Iran has very close relations with Kenya as a whole. The Kenyan people, a large majority of them, at least within Nairobi, the capital, are very sympathetic to Iran's cause. They're very anti-western. And I don't think Iran wants to jeopardize that.

One thing that Iran has proven really capable of doing throughout this war is having people on its side either through some of the funniest social media memes you'll ever see or through just being funny on social media rather. So Iran knows the importance of soft power.

They're not going to squander it by attacking bases in the global south even if they host American troops unless and if America starts using them to attack Iran, and given America has a host of options within the Middle East that are closer and better positioned, I don't see that happening.

Wilfred W.: For me, this was one of the single most surprising things that has happened throughout the war. I expected the UAE's nuclear plan to be attacked only if America carried out strikes that were so devastating against Iran, it felt it had no option but to pull the trigger and pull the entire region down with it.

Wilfred W.: When the desalination plants were attacked, I assumed that's the kind of attack that would get us to this kind of threshold, not Iraqi militias for whatever reason choosing to remind the world that they have the ability to target such an installation, and it points to a broader issue that we will discuss later in the podcast about Iraqi militias

And...

Wilfred W.: Whether the new government of Ali Zedi will be able to handle them. But for me, the fact that a nuclear installation was targeted, shocking, absolutely shocking.

Wilfred W.: One thing I do want to point out is that the UAE is increasing its alignment with Israel, not only during this war but just slightly before, as a potential reason why Iran could hit them a lot more than they have in the past. Just throwing that out there.

Wilfred W.: But there was no realistic situation where even with all their money, a significant amount of their money tied up in Abu Dhabi and elsewhere, the UAE and Iran are going to be anything more than friends of convenience and business partners. There was no so I also want to point out one thing.

Wilfred W.: There was a report, I think it was early this week or late last week, that the UAE was conducting covert military operations against Iran.

So depending on when these military operations began, if they started around the same time as Israel and America's strikes, which was the 28th of February, that could give us justification from Iran's point of view.

So, a little bit of background on this. He's been in house arrest for a bit. He's been just kind of sitting waiting for the regime to decide what exactly they want to do with him. Possibly just kind of let him marinate and then leave him in his situation unresolved. Who's to say?

His home was apparently targeted by Israel on the first day of strikes not to kill him but to get him out of house arrest.

This is quoting now from Osen Defender, one of the better open-source outlets that we follow, designed to free him from house arrest and place him in a position to take over the country, following the excuse me. Wow. Evan Moloney: Following the elimination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

So the idea was that Israel, with the US's consent, would kind of clear the way for him to begin aggregating power and eventually challenge the Supreme Leader. Evan Moloney: It appears that did not happen. Quoting again, after the near miss, he became disillusioned with the regime change plan, aka, hey, you just dropped a bomb on my house.

What was that about? Disillusioned with the plan and halted further communication with Israel. He has not been seen publicly since then, and his current whereabouts and condition are unknown. He was reported killed after the first day of strikes, I believe, by the second day, twice. Kyle Moran: Twice. I have to jump in. Evan Moloney: Fascinating.

So, I'm just going to open the floor here. Not even going to do a little prompt. Just how are we feeling about this? Kyle Moran: This story has been something I've been so fascinated by for no rational explanation, but I just from the outset had this gut feeling that there was something going on here.

And it's starting to make sense because none of the official story just did not make sense. He was apparently under house arrest.

Kyle Moran: The former president of Iran was under house arrest, and then they bombed his house, but he survived after originally thinking he had died, and then it was thought that he had been targeted to be as an escape method, and then it was reported he was assassinated once again, and then he came back from the dead again.

So it's really just been this guy has nine lives type of situation. So on all of this, it's fascinating to me the lack of coordination between Israel and the United States on this. You would imagine that this would have been banged out ahead of time.

If anybody in the DoD or whatever may be listening, this should have been banged out ahead of time rather than figuring out what the heck to do with him after. 01:05:00

Wilfred W.: Because of the kind of person, Ahmadinejad... He's a guy who at one point said he would like to see Israel wiped off the map. He exactly. Kyle Moran: Many times. Kyle Moran: Many times. Wilfred W.: So when I said this story made me feel like drinking, it's because one, I simply couldn't believe it.

And two, how did I really want to know how the communication between Mossad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad happen? At what point did they approach him? How did they decide that this was going to be our guy? And what had he offered in terms of concessions?

Because yes, if he was going to be a Deli Rodriguez figure, he must have offered concessions because as we've seen with Deli, she's deported allies of Maduro. She's gotten them out of power. She's opened up the Venezuelan oil industry to American interests. So, what kind of concessions had he offered?

Wilfred W.: And again, it's so ironic that we went from Ali Khamenei to the guys running the IRGC right now, Vahadi and crew, because of Israel's and America's operations, we went from someone who wasn't necessarily a moderate, not really a hardliner, just somewhere in between two guys who are extreme hardliners running the country right now.

Evan Moloney: Yeah, that raises a question as well

Wilfred W.: So, if he's not dead, let's just assume for a moment he's not dead, what are the odds that the IRGC makes a public spectacle of his execution just to send a message to the West? Kyle Moran: I have to imagine he's getting the heck out of Iran if he hasn't already.

Kyle Moran: I mean, he was freed from captivity under house arrest on February 28th or… Kyle Moran: March 1st. So, if he's still around in Iran, I mean, it might be over for him, but I have to imagine he's left.

Evan Moloney: Yeah, I would have to guess that he has taken a long walk to Turkmenistan and… Evan Moloney: then a quick flight to Russia and probably a third location after that. Kyle Moran: Yeah, the Russia thing is it's almost comical to me. There's going to be like this club of former dictators just hanging out together in Moscow.

Kyle Moran: You got Bashar, you got Ahmadinejad. Who else we got? I know there's several more, but they're going to be all hanging out together. Evan Moloney: Yeah, those are the kind of parties I do not ever want to attend. Evan Moloney: One more note before we close up for the day because we're going a bit over time now.

Let's take a turn to Iraq, where I'm going to just bring up the question of their political transition right now because I know both of you have many thoughts on that.

Wilfred W.: Iraq is a very fascinating place because it has gone from being ruled by dictators to basically being in the palm of America's hand and not being able to take a decision, without America's approval. And Kyle and I have spoken about this a bit in past broadcasts. There was a leadership vacuum in the country.

They didn't have a full-time prime minister, and the guys who are standing for the position had received a lot of pushback from Washington because one of the guys, Kyle, remind me his name, please. Wilfred W.: The guy that Washington didn't want, because of his ties with Iran, because he oversaw the complete security of Maliki. Kyle Moran: Maliki.

Wilfred W.: Yes. Maliki was one of the main leading contenders for the prime premiership. But Washington basically said, if this guy becomes your prime minister, you're not getting anything from us. You're not getting any of the money that's coming in for your oil. You're basically getting nothing, and Iraq can't operate without it.

So they went with a complete political novice, someone who has not held political office before, a gentleman by the name of Ali Alawi, that I mentioned earlier. Wilfred W.: And one of the things that Washington wants from him is the dismantling of the Iranian-backed militias within Iraq.

Wilfred W.: And my immediate question was, does he have the political capital and the experience to take down these militias that have been in existence much longer than he's been a political figure? So, what do you guys think? Kyle Moran: Yeah. Kyle Moran: So, Iraq has been in the world's most awkward love triangle.

So, it's not just the United States who has influence over them. They're equally split, 50-50, between Iran and Washington. Some days you may lean one way, some days a little more the other way. Both Iraq badly needs both, which, before this war, was awkward enough, and given the current situation, is even more awkward and more of a balancing act.

Kyle Moran: So, when Iranian-backed militias are launching attacks on not just US bases but also Arab allies of Iraq, it's Iraq that has good relations with many of the countries Iran's militias are firing on, at least had, and now Iraq is sort of being caught up in that because the Gulf countries are saying, you guys have to get this under control.

You cannot just allow these militias to be firing on us. So, part of this Maliki's legacy was just absolutely awful in terms of the sectarian divides he instilled in the military. He just fired people who weren't Shia.

Kyle Moran: He packed them with Shia loyalists and basically just led this huge buildup of stagnation within the Iraqi army that ultimately culminated in the rise of ISIS and the complete collapse in cases like Mosul. So, I don't think it was in anyone's interest in Iraq to have Maliki be prime minister.

I don't think it would be in the Shia, Sunni, Christian, or anyone else's interest because his legacy is just so bad on that. So, when it comes to any of the other contenders, the problem was that other than Sudani, who was a caretaker PM, there weren't a lot of great options, in part because nobody really seems to want that job.

It's a difficult position to be in. I don't envy him at all on it. So, when we talk about I don't think he's capable of delivering on disarming these militias at all. I think that Washington wants somebody who's less openly pro-Iran than Maliki. The PMF, this umbrella force, was sort of put together by Maliki after the total failure of the Iraqi army.

So you can sort of see the logic there. But in terms of dismantling them, this is the same case as Lebanon. Once these things get embedded deep in the country, they cause a complete political gridlock because they have such outsized influence. They can just declare their own foreign policy, begin their own wars, and drag the country in along with them.

And Iran has been very willing to back groups that are willing to do that to countries throughout the region.

Wilfred W.: For me, one thing I do want to watch is when will the US stop being involved in the region? Because it will happen at some point if a deal is not reached. And on that note, I also want to see if Washington and Tehran can actually agree on a deal if that happens. That's the best-case scenario for everyone involved.

But if not, then we'll be back here with more war reporting.