Ben Rhodes

And because that's offline, not only is Qatar taking an economic hit, but there are people in the UK that are sliding into poverty because they're dependent on that gas for power.

I mean, you know, they, they do not like to get directly into conflict with a country like Iran for a number of reasons.

If you're, if you're sitting in Saudi Arabia one of which is just, yeah, like they, their, their militaries are kind of designed to be plugged into ours to kind of work off of our military and,

And, you know, they joined us in something like the counter ISIS campaign, right, when we're taking out, you know, terrorist infrastructure.

But Iran is a country of 94 million people that is right across the body of water from them.

And if you look at how Iran has...

Conducted itself in this war.

The most hawkish Gulf state is the UAE.

They're the ones that led the Abraham Accords alliance with Israel.

They're the ones that have been the most active in places like Yemen and Sudan and Libya.

Yeah, and here's the thing.

If you look at who Iran has hit, they've hit all these Gulf states, but they've hit the UAE much more than anybody else.

There's a kind of quiet signaling that happens between these countries where the Saudis know that Iran could do far more damage to their energy infrastructure.

Saudi is also not reliant on the Strait of Hormuz to get its oil out because it has overland pipelines.

And so I think what's happening in part is if the Saudis know that if they dive into this, the drones are going to rain down on their- Pipelines get hit.

Exactly, exactly.

Yes, a defensive alliance.

Well, the cynic in me might suggest that Sweden has not made a $2 billion investment in Jared Kushner's investment fund.

That's what Trump wants NATO to do, just kick in some money to Kushner's... Well, I...

Look, the Gulf states have invested a lot in what Trump cares about, which is like his businesses, his family businesses, his crypto.