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Chapter 1: What is the current state of the Iran war and its implications?
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Episode 394. Section 394 is New York law, not currently enforced, that requires social media platforms to let users report hateful content. In 1994, the hit sitcom Friends aired. How do you spot the blind man at a nudist beach? It's not hard. Get it? It's not hard. Go, go! Welcome to the 394th episode of The Prof G Pod. What's happening?
In today's episode, we speak with Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of Eurasia Group, the world's leading political risk research and consulting firm and GZERO Media. Ian has been on the show 15 times. One, I think he's very insightful, but also, I just like Ian. He just makes me feel better about the world. He's so easy to say.
He just is like, yeah, the chance of a nuclear war has gone up from 10% to 20%. And here's a picture of Moose, my terrier. He's just... He calms me. He takes the temperature down inside my mind, which nobody wants to hang out in. No, let's avoid that part of town at all costs. But yeah, I'm a big fan of Ian. I think he's great at what he does.
He's built a small business or not so small business and generally just a nice guy. Anyway, with that, we hope you enjoy our conversation with Ian Bremmer. Ian, where does this podcast find you?
I am back in my office in New York City. Sunny, spring-like New York City. Thank God we need something.
That's nice. So let's bust right into it. Abroad, the war in Iran drags on with no end in sight. Blockades were exchanged. The Strait of Hormuz is still effectively closed and talks keep collapsing. At home, we had another incident of political violence earlier this week, the attempted assassination of the president of the White House Correspondents' Center.
Ian, in your view, what's the state of play in geopolitics right now, particularly in Iran?
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Chapter 2: How is the U.S. losing its alliances in the Middle East?
Secretary Rubio called it unacceptable. Trump canceled the Islamabad follow-up talks. A ceasefire technically, technically, is doing a lot of work here, holds. But both sides keep probing. Qatar is warning of a frozen conflict. Who do you think has more leverage right now, Washington or Tehran?
The Americans say they have more leverage. the fact that the Germans spoke the way they did implies they think the Iranians have more leverage, which is not helpful. I will say the Iranians have an information advantage. They have an asymmetry here, right? Trump for a very long time has talked about the fact that you never know what Trump is going to do is an advantage, right?
Like he could do crazy. And so people have to be careful with him. Well, we actually know less about the Iranian leadership who is willing and capable of ultimately implementing a decision, how decentralized the decision-making process is. And we don't have good information on who's saying what to whom.
We're in the United States, we've got polls, we've got impact in the markets, we've got all sorts of people inside the Trump administration that are talking to the media. So it is easier for the Iranians to assess that Trump wants a ceasefire, that he's looking for an off ramp, that he's promising the American people that this war will be over soon. I mean, all these things.
It's very hard for the Americans to make that assessment of the Iranians today. Now, America, of course, is vastly more powerful than Iran. And so in principle, that should give the Americans a lot more leverage. And yet the Iranians are showing that they are willing and capable of taking a lot more pain. 150 of their leaders have been assassinated. No American leaders have been assassinated.
No Israeli leaders have been assassinated. So the Iranians are taking a lot more damage. They've got over a million people displaced. They've got well over a thousand dead, Americans, 13. So, I mean, the Iranians are clearly showing that they are capable of tolerating a lot more pain than the Americans had expected.
They're also showing that their military capacity at this point is much greater than the military planners in the U.S. believe. And here, Scott, I'm not talking about what Trump thought, having ignored what a lot of his military planners were telling him. I'm actually talking about the military planners. They are very surprised.
CENTCOM is very surprised that in the third month of this war, that the Iranians still have over 50% of their ballistic missile capacity intact. They're very surprised that after strikes on launch pads, that in some cases, the Iranians were able to dig them out and relaunch within 24 hours. They're very surprised by that.
They're surprised by the hypersonics that were able to get through American defenses in the Sultan Air Base in Riyadh and destroy American advanced aircraft. They're surprised by the range that the Iranian missiles were able to show to launch a small attack on the base of Diego Garcia. So there has been more capability shown militarily on the part of the Iranians, despite all this damage.
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Chapter 3: What are the economic consequences of the Iran war?
So the question is, how are you going to reduce your losses in ways that allow everyone to move forward? And I do think the best, the least worst scenario at this point is to conclude the war and open the strait as soon as humanly possible. And I would have argued that six weeks ago easily, it would have been much better than now.
I mean, I don't see what's been gained in the last six weeks other than far, far more economic damage.
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Chapter 4: What factors led the UAE to withdraw from OPEC?
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I see that the oil infrastructure in Russia is being damaged and that Ukrainian drones and technology are increasing or ramping up their attacks on Russian oil infrastructure and registering a lot of success. At the same time, I see other reports that Russia's industrial machine is just overwhelming Ukraine with more and more drones. Give me what you think the state of play is in that conflict.
For the last three months, Ukraine has taken back a small amount of territory. And that is because the drone capabilities and the unmanned ground vehicle capabilities are increasingly...
changing um the advantage on the front line if not in favor of ukraine at least no longer in favor of the more highly manned russia russia benefits from the war they're selling a lot more oil gas fertilizer commodities at higher prices some sanctions have been suspended by the u.s
Furthermore, the Ukrainians are having a harder time getting access to some of the weapons that the Europeans want to buy for them because they are in short supply and necessary now for the Iran war, American weapons. So there is a tactical advantage to the Russians that come from the Iran war. but the war itself between Russia and Ukraine has, at best for Russia, shifted to a stalemate.
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Chapter 5: How does the Iran war affect global geopolitical dynamics?
I think he knows that he can't turn the economy around. That's why he's suddenly pivoting towards patience on Iran. That's why he said, I'm surprised oil prices are so low. I thought they could be 250, $300. They're under a hundred. I think he knows that he's in too deep. And so the midterms are lost. And so then the question is, does that make him more risk-acceptant?
Does it make him more willing to allow this war to go on and roll the dice and maybe even use ground troops? Because one of the things so far that has been a limitation of how badly this war is perceived as going by the Americans is 13 Americans have been killed, but no ground troops have been inserted. that could change very easily. And there are plans for that.
And there are troops that are in the region for that. But Trump recognizes that they're extremely risky and they're not being recommended by his advisors. So if he knows he's going to lose no matter what, and he knows that in the following two years, he's going to become more of a lame duck,
Does that make him more risk-acceptant in trying to end checks and balances against him and just throw everything at the wall? Or does he give up on that and start focusing more on monetization? He's worth $5 billion that he's made through the presidency in the last year. How about $50 billion?
How can he potentially use the remainder of his period in time to make as much money for himself and his family as humanly possible? And I'm not saying he can't do both, but I do suspect that there will be a prioritization of one or the other.
And it is not clear to me that the closer he gets to the end of the administration, whether he really is trying to go all out like Bolsonaro in Brazil, and I must find a way to ensure that my political opponents are defeated and they're investigated and they're arrested and I control the elections and I select the next person, or he just gives up on that because it ain't happening.
And and he focuses on the stuff that he can do, which is make a shit ton of money as president. And I don't I don't know the answer to that.
Yeah, I always learn from you. And the thing that I take away from this conversation that's literally sent chills down my spine, it just makes so much sense. And I think the media or most of the media has missed it. And if you just look at the fact patterns here, it's such an obvious insight, but I'd missed it. I think you're right.
I think there's a non-zero probability he trades Taiwan for billions of dollars of personal enrichment. You're absolutely right. She can say to the guy, figure out a way. We'll work with you to kind of slow step a creeping takeover of Taiwan. You start making noises about we need peace in China and Taiwan. You would draw the military umbrella coverage of Taiwan.
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