Just Another Pod Guy
I should be clearer re how I view what’s happening:
A. I do not think this all ends cleanly in a week. That’s delusional. I do think the U.S. is ahead of their own expected timeline but is still very much at risk of terror attacks or blown up tankers.
B. I however also completely disagree that regime change is impossible without boots on the ground in a world where the U.S. has precise targeting and Israel is willing to do its dirty work while the U.S. provides overwatch
C. I disagree that elevated oil prices are a certainty and instead view oil prices as a lever that the admin can now control more precisely with the ability to make things very painful for whichever major energy importers at will.
D. I disagree with the framing that the American voter is the ultimate loser if energy prices spike as there are levers to pull to mitigate the impact as I and others have outlined before.
E. This is all about decoupling which is the only reason the admin is taking this kind of risk. Regardless of whatever bullshit about Epstein and AIPAC your favorite podcaster is spewing i still believe that people like Bessent, Rubio and Vance only care about the American interest. Isreal is a useful ally in this endeavor but the endeavor was undertaken due to a broader playbook.
F. I think this is all about decoupling and we are systemically grabbing the levers of global trade into a divorce with China.
G. On the way to decoupling the west from China we still need to beat Europe, India and South Korea into submission.
They agreed to trade deals with transshipment clause but they haven’t yet been asked to enforce it.
When it’s time we need a really dam heavy stick. I’ve outlined what that looks like.
Think of access to ME energy as another arrow in the quiver.
H. I also believe this endeavor was not embarked on without first getting the Gulf States on-sides. We had to offer them something China couldn’t – long term security with the permanent removal of the destabilizing actor in the region.
In return when divorce comes they will be on sides. They will throttle energy when needed. They will price energy in dollars. They will give Trump pools of capital to offset weaponization of financialization as countries try to dump stocks and bonds to fight the transhipment enforcement.
I. And finally we have preemptively defanged a Taiwan invasion. In addition to the obvious loss of fabs and breakout of the first island chain the biggest issue with a successful invasion of Taiwan is it would demonstrate that American overwatch is a paper tiger. Trump has successfully demonstrated to the world that Americas military is lethal and valuable to have as an ally.
Yes we need to ramp production rates of drones and interceptors – which we are doing – and yes China is downstream of some of our supply lines which we are addressing – but if we let Xi take Taiwan it won’t be as disastrous as it would have been in an alternate world where the last thing the American military did was botch a withdrawal from Afghanistan.
I still think we can amicably split the world into spheres. I still think decoupling is the goal. But first we need to crush Europe and Canada before we ultimately pull the west away from China.
Just a internal view from inside Iran, Goldie Ghamari:
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