#180 - Oil and water

0:00Like Donald Trump is shitting his gossip fuck from him because if they had have done ABCD, FG differently and he had have made slightly different calls, it could have been an eight, nine, or a tenet, you know. Whereas you're at a seven with the difference being Donald Trump's incompetence. Hi, I'm Andy. And I'm Roger. And welcome to the middle where we try to have thoughtful conversations about awkward topics on our search to find the middle. We're gonna give you last week's news today. So it's just Logan, we should put up a t-shirt. I am tonight announcing my candidacy. Taylor Swift. Look, my biggest issue with marriage is that I think that it's fundamentally flawed institution that is built on the oppression of women. I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny. Having truly rational conversations about controversial issues is risky these days. Hey, Roger. Andy, how you doing? Yeah, not too bad. How do you think they're afforded to fly the Artemis II rocket with the cost of fuel at the moment?

1:00I don't know. It's when I was reading the, whatever the blurb was on NASA though, they had a lot of pride in the diversity of the crew. I'm like, D.E.I. is still alive in NASA, right? Like the first female to escape the Earth's orbit, sorry, Sanchez or whoever the Katy Perry went up on Bezos' thing, whatever, what was that called again? Blue, blue orbit, blue... I want to see Blue Origin. Blue horizon on it. Some kind of blue thing. But yeah, first female astronaut and first brown astronaut, woman, sorry, a person of color. So there you go. Just to be fair, the so-called brown astronaut. Okay, that was not on the official NASA blurb. Okay, but the least qualified person on this mission is actually like the white guy. He's never been to space. Oh, wow. Where the rest of them have.

2:01But yeah, it's... Derek and NASA is responsible for that blip in the fuel trading market. Like they don't Trump gave them, like, hey, just like got to buy all your fuel. Like just before I announced this truth social tweet. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, it's interesting to see, but I only can only assume that whatever the rocket fuel that they need is a very, very specific type of refinement that there's not even really fuel as we know. Pretty sure it's just the... Shell. Like the premium, you know, like ethanol. Not the E10 stuff, but they're just usually the premium stuff, don't they? Well, speaking of, okay. What's your mentality around the quality of petrol that you use? Well, to be fair, I drive a 13-year-old Toyota Corolla. There wasn't always a 13-year-old. So did you... Yeah, give it to me. Like, what's the theory here? You just... No, I've always just gone like standard. Like, I think it's a con. I think even if there is some benefit

3:03of like going premium, even if there is a benefit, it's almost certainly going to be overpriced for that benefit. Yeah, see. Yeah, that's what I wanted you to admit. Because I feel a little bit differently. So I... And I think it's because, growing up, I had that luxury sports car that physically required high octane. So you actually had to feed it 95 and above, because it had a turbo engine and a bunch of other things. So I've been programmed to think that actually, I tend to always get the... I take the same approach as trying to find a bowl of wine at a restaurant. Give me your second cheapest bottle of wine, right? That's kind of how I approach it. I think that the 95, and there are some tests actually, that the 95 compared to the 91, or, you know, the next best option, gets you a little bit further as well. So it's actually more... You get actually a bit more out of the car. So just to be clear, you're not talking about the premium one. You're talking about the basically just not E10, right?

4:05Clear, you're not talking about whatever that... They've all got like their own different brands, but like the 98 kind of... Yeah. Or like the really high expensive one, right? That's right. So in New South Wales, you got three options, right? 91, 95, and 98. Usually, there's three kind of options. 98 is super premium, and 91 is the bargain basement, right? And it might be E10 with the ethanol added, but it may not be. So I sometimes... Yeah, well, sometimes the E10 and the E... Whatever the... sorry, the 95 is like... They're virtually... Not just similar price, right? In fact, I've even been like once and seen... The E10 is more expensive, which... Really? Yeah, well, I assume it was some kind of... Price of grain? Like sequencing error where they hadn't adjusted one, but they had adjusted the other. But yeah, if it's two cents difference, then you wouldn't get E10, but I wouldn't pay like 30 cents more for... No, there's never 30 cents more. Well, whatever, right? Yeah.

5:05Anyway, there's... Probably is now. Well, actually, ironically, at my local petrol station, the only thing available in New South Wales is actually the 91. So there's all I've been able to find for the last two weeks. All right, so let's check back in, because we talked about around some episodes ago, but probably quite a lot has happened in the meantime. Yeah. I can't even remember what the conversation we had back then was, it seems like E10 and E10. Like many people we got distracted by the Epstein files. Oh, and just on that, you did see Pam Bondi is gone. Well, I wouldn't say he's just the Epstein files that haven't landed so well with Pam Bondi, but anyway, or Pam Bondi for Easter eggs. So what's your take? How's it gone? How's this operation going for the US at the moment? Yeah, I mean, all these... How's it gone? Well, I mean, if you just look at the facts

6:07on the ground, I think that you can spin a case through it going very well for the interests of... Iraq. America and Israel. So I'll kind of give it the pro case first. Very few. So just to be clear, this is not your view, this is just your China. I'm trying to lay it out, because to be honest, the view is obscured at the moment, right? For many people, and myself included. So the purpose of petrol prices? Yeah, I mean, often too much ethanol. But the pro case is that there's been hardly any, you know, almost a rounding error of casualties on the American side, okay? They've... Have their stated objectives of degrading Iran's military and all these kind of things have been pretty much achieved, right? So they have reduced their missile capacity, they've hit out a lot of their manufacturing base, they have to capitated probably three rounds of the Iranian leadership at the moment.

7:09And, you know, they've done it. They've kind of destroyed the navy. They've sunk so many boats, right? And ships and everything. And degraded a lot of the capacity of that. So, yeah, in a way, right? Like in a military sense. It's been a success. And they've done that without, like I said, any casualties and have largely protected the allies in the region of the Gulf state. So they have helped a lot and made sure that most... most of the missiles and ballistic kind of interference have been intercepted and dealt with. So from that side has been good, right? And we have to remember that, you know, Iran has shown the world exactly what it is throughout the course of the last couple of years and also throughout the course of this war, attacking this and everything around the Gulf and how they've treated their own civilians and all this kind of stuff. So from that side, I think you could make a mount case that's going very well. You sound a little bit like JD Vance or Marco Rubio

8:09as though if you utter those words, that it can actually be true. Like... Which parts? Well, because none of that's true, right? Like what you just said. Like has not been a success, right? No, no, but they're just... From what I said, though, around the military side. How was that nature? But they haven't destroyed their capability to hold the global economy to ransom. So... Or to threaten their neighboring... No, there's not the state of goals. States and countries, right? Well, I don't know quite what the state of goals are because there seems to be a different one every time we hear from Mr. Butterstick over there. But, you know, I think... Like what's the measure of success, right? The measure of success is not going into this. Could not have been, we will be happy if we can get a third of their missile capability destroyed, right? Like that will be a good success for us. Where it makes no material difference to their ability to threaten the things that matter to us, right? Maybe if you're Israel, the equation might be a little bit different because they're at the end of the day, like for them it's like existential, right?

9:09But if you're the United States and you're thinking, well, let's get into this thing, right? There's no way that... You can't have a partial victory or an almost there, right? You need absolute complete annihilation for this to have been a success. And they are so far away from that that it almost defaults to absolute, like complete an utter failure, right? And... Well, do you have anything to back that up? Well, have you been to the petrol station recently? What does it have to do with... Because that is the military capability of Iran? Because the reason we are in the situation we're in is because Iran retains the ability to have the noose around the rest of the world's neck, right? On this issue, right? And if you're Donald Trump right now, you can't be thinking this isn't a success. Like, in terms of the military, it's probably in the way that he thinks every, like, his shit stinks beautifully, kind of thing. But like... I think you're definitely undercooking this, mate. So all the things that I've read,

10:10and again, this is just one side of what success means is true. So you said, oh, I'll be happy if there's a third, there's like credible sources that over 80 percent take a good eight. The ballistic missile capability has been degraded, right? Like, that is actually a good thing. That's... Okay, but they don't have regime change. They don't have... They didn't say that that was part of their view, right? Well, I've kind of heard that. And the other thing is, if you're Israel, maybe that matters. Okay, if you're Israel, maybe it matters what... Like, the strength and power of this massive neighbor that basically thinks that your country shouldn't exist anymore. So maybe, maybe if you're Benjamin Netanyahu and you're considering this and you're considering like, this question, it might be different. It might be different conversation, right? But if you're the United States, how is it in your interests to have poked the bear in this way such that, like, we are literally fucked. Like, the global economy is fucked,

11:10basically. Because we're fucked. The global economy is fucked, because of this. Yes. The adaptations happening, right? Like, if you think that that is going to be a wise-scale thing for an extended period of time, like, that's just... 20% of the world's oil and gas and all these other critical resources come through this part of the world, right? How can you possibly say that this is a success? That's just one dimension, right? So that's what I'm saying. You need to look at this from all the different views. Imagine I'm a voter in America. What do I get out of this? Why is this good for me? It's a very good view. Because, essentially, you've got a country that is very oppositional towards you, shouting death to America, over and over for the last, God knows how many decades. You've got teraproxies, causing problems all over the world and threatening you. You have 90 to 90% of oil being funded

12:11at discounted rates to one of your biggest competitors, it is being China. So you've got a bunch of things happening and the fact that if they get nuclear weapons, they can hold even more ransom to the and take up air time for the geopolitics that your country's proposing, right? So there's a lot of things that benefit them. And I'm not convinced by any of that. I'm just seeing the price of petrol at the bazaar. Well, then you're needed. And you can say, oh, yeah, well, there's all these things now. So you're a selfish idiot, then. Like, the only way this mate would have made sense, right? Is if they now, let's give Donald Trump his dues for Venezuelan. It was a very clean operation. They got what they want, they got the man, they extracted him out. And in fact, that's probably what emboldened him to do this one, right? And that's the only way this could have been a success. Like, as in, go in, get the itola, you know, regime change, like popular uprising. It's really quick operations done like a week, you know,

13:11a couple of strategic bombs here and there. I mean, a week's a bit rough. Well, whatever, right? And everything's back to normal, right? That's the only scenario with this approach, this suite of tactics, like, it could have been a good call, right? And everything else you've just mentioned, like, sure, like you might say in isolation, this one thing, this, this, yeah, okay, they've like, all right, we've degraded certain capabilities by X percent or whatever. But like, what about the second, third, fourth round implications of this, right? Like, what about the stability of that region? Like, what about the Gulf states who have a credible amount to lose from, from this right? So it's completely disrupted the equilibrium. And if you can't completely destroy Iran, do you think that they're not going to, like, rebuild and restore? Like, of course, of course they are. And they're going to be even more assertive, right? And that's why now, like, the Gulf states are saying,

14:11like, you've got to finish the job because you can't leave this fucking mess on our doorstep. And it is a fucking mess on their doorstep. And the problem is, they're not going to have the result to see it through. So it's just creating this massive, like, hot mess in this region. Petrol prices, fuel prices now, like, you could argue on one level, well, that's a very selfish way of looking at it. Well, not really because this is the own goal we're talking about. Again, if you're Israel, it might be a different story. But if you're an average voter in the US, and certainly if you, you know, in countries like Australia and the rest of the world, this is like a complete disaster. No, I mean, I don't agree on that. Well, I'd like to not, I'd like to think that people have a bit more resolve than that. And to kind of understand the trade-off that's happening. And also, if anything, the Gulf states have shown greater support for the action than what was anticipated is bonded them together against Iran. Like, look at what's actually happening. Right. When's the last time you've had all the Gulf states, and even people like Qatar and others

15:11that have been playing both sides for a long time, supporting the action. And you might say, oh, that's because they have to now and all this... That's not getting bombed. They're getting... There you go. They're getting... Can you say that again? They're getting bombed. Yeah, but... Do you understand what's happening here? Mate, roll in the dice on Iran. Those odds are pretty good that you're going to get something better than what was there. I don't know. That's true. I don't think that's true. Kill 30,000 of your own citizens. I think you can mount like a humanitarian case. But again, I think you've got to come back to you for your goal, like you can have a goal to trigger regime change to change the situation. Any number of... You can have those objectives, but it's certainly not the best way to achieve this. I didn't hear any... any kind of suggestion of what would be a better way, bringing into the fold of nations. I think history shows that you can't force regime change from... from without, right? It has to become from within. And every time America has tried to do that,

16:12it's completely failed, right? Even Venezuela. Would it be possible to get the man? But not the regime, right? Yeah, but if you cut the head off... How is it going to work? Are they going to put boots on the ground to do that? No, they're not. They're not going to have the resolve to do that. And if Donald Trump puts these however many... You know, these got circling the region at the moment on the ground? Yeah, sure. But for how long? Like, what another... Marga that's like completely opposed to, you know, forever wars. Like, is this... Are they going to... Like, is this actually what you as that middle of the road American voter wants? I don't think so. So... I don't think people... There'd be a large cohort of people that understand that if there's 30,000 people that have their own statistics that have been mowed down, protesting the... theocracy like this. There's been... putting them under the boot for this long and taking away rights and pushing them backwards. And if the president says it helps on the way, but actually, you owe it to... to do that. Right, so I think that that's also an angle here that you can't forget that people are on a vast for help. So, just to, like,

17:13tease us out a bit, right? So, I think, if you said to me that, like, hey, like a quick, easy kind of low-hanging fruit, get them while they're a little bit weak, there's a popular uprising as it is that, you know, they're already a little bit depleted. Let's get them while we have this window of time now. Let's go and go go hard, go sharp, go quickly. And even if it's not regime change, even if it's some version of just, like, look, we'll just, you know, to billisate them somehow, right? Like that, that is a calculus you can genuinely, like, have a conversation about, right? You can't bring a ideological I'm against all kinds of war, like, against to that, right? Or I'm against Donald Trump in every scenario. So, like, that's just, I just not going to support that. So, if that's kind of where you're coming from, I don't disagree with that, right? But I think if even Donald Trump knew where we would be today, before he pushed the button, if he knew that we would be where we are

18:13right now, there's no way he would have pushed the button. No, that's not true. That's not true. You're not taking it in any of the accounts of actual real threat as well, right? Like, okay, maybe we should start a bit further back. Do you believe that it is a reasonable goal to prevent around from achieving a nuclear weapon? Yeah, but that's, that's not, that's not, do you think that that's credible? Because not everyone does. Yeah, of course, of course. And look, I think one of the problems in this space, right, is for one, there's a lot of different things going on, right? Like, there's not a lot of, like, clarity, right? But I've just asked our friend, ChatGPT, a question, right? Because I think one of the problems in this space is, like, to really have good instincts about where this war sits at, and like, the progress, whether it was good call, not good call, whatever, you actually kind of need to know a lot of shit about a lot of different things, right? And there will be people who would spend their entire career life-focusing

19:13on this question, and still would not be short, right? Yeah. So, I asked our, our good friend, what do strategic analysts say about the war in terms of its success, and whether it was good call, right? To tell me if there's anything in this statement that you would, you'd disagree with. A pretty fair read of current commentary is that analysts are split into a few camps. Some think the war was a defensible call, if the real objective was to heavily degrade Iran's missile, drone, naval, and nuclear capabilities. Because there is evidence those capabilities have been damaged, and even ratings agencies like Fitch are describing the operations as having reduced security threats. Others think that even if they were tactical gains, the war is varying towards strategic failure, because Iran remains able to retaliate. The US lacks a clear exit strategy,

20:13and the conflict may end up strengthening hard liners, rather than producing a stable and state. So, in some respects, that's a pretty almost a near enough representation of the conversation we just had. Well, I think I need Lee. And I think I paraphrased that my view to this is just the military side right and degradement. So, I agree with that. But can I just pin you on the one thing? Do you think this has gone better or worse than Donald Trump would have anticipated before pressing button? Because I can't believe you would say that he would think it's gone better, or even on par. So, if I channeled Donald Trump, I think that the military side has gone how he's wanted, like obliteration and a destruction and all that. I think that where it hasn't gone, and he's been surprised, is that they're still limping on. And they're not coming to the table to either surrender or make a deal. So, in that respect. Don't you think they're related, though, in some respects? Because the way I would see that equation is that because the military side, or like the actual,

21:14like, okay, in terms of, like, how did we get the targets? Did we, you know, that we went after a shore? But actually, like, Donald Trump wouldn't have got into the room saying, I want you to get that. I want you to get that. I want you to get that. He would have got in. I just want you to, like, fuck them over until they come and meet me, and I can, like, extract all the stuff that I want out of them, right? That's what he would have gone into the room with, right? Yeah, and look, I mean, to some degree, that has always starting to happen. Now, what is not, I think what has been a huge, maybe, um, miscalculation is just how far the asymmetry reaches when it comes to the state of homeless and how, um, cheaply they can disrupt the security clearance or the security areas of other neighboring states. So, so, what I mean by that is that, from what it sounds like, some dude in a dinghy with, like, a rocket launcher can still fuck over the, the state of homeless, right? But see, this is not, like, where this is, and we, like, we haven't even really gone into the incompetence of Donald

22:14Trump and his administration, unlike, but this is no different to the Pyongyang can get sold with or without nuclear weapons, right? And that shouldn't require any great foresight to have, no, there's, worked out where we were going to be, mere weeks after. It's neither, it's neither the whole picture, though, right? Like, all the, all the whole game, you know? So, all I'm saying is, yeah, I think that, that was probably, could have been better prepared for, right? And communicated, and so on, but that's just not Trump style, right? Um, and I guess it's probably the difference in someone who believes that they can bully their way to a deal of some sort, and dealing with proper theocrats, proper like hardliners, right? Like, and dealing with jihadis, and all these kinds of things. And it's probably that is, that that plays into this, right? That actually, you know, you can cut the head off the snake, but sometimes there's two little baby snake heads that

23:14pop out, right? And, and can you deal with that? Or not, you know, obviously, Israel understands that a lot better than probably, um, Trump does, right? All right. So, I want to do two more things. I want to, first of all, get you to outline your, because I think you started off with your pro-case, so how to give your chance to give your con-case, um, because you triggered me with your pro-case. Um, and then I want to react to some, to a message you sent me, uh, a week or two ago, and come back to that and, and see what, um, because I think that's you got triggered by, uh, yeah, and by it. So, let's get the, um, now that I've had a moment to calm down, um, let, give me your, um, warm heart up with some con-case. Yeah. And this has all sorts of mirror imaging, imaging, then, or alignment with the Israel and Gaza problem, right?

24:14Where, a similar thing, you can absolutely dominate, uh, an asymmetric war, and from a military point of view, you can crush them, absolutely crush them, right? And, and expose them. No air defenses, is flying, loitering around, and just taking out targets, taking out individuals, capability on shows amazing. But, if you go further abroad, and you look at the strategic priorities, of safety in the region, your own brand, your ally network, it's in tatters, right? So obviously, like, take, he doesn't take a genius to realize that there's real, real damage to the alliance, you know, the post-World War II alliance, you know, that I think that, as much as they talk about this axis of evil and all this kind of stuff like that, uh, America are losing their friends, you know, and no one's coming to help. No one's helping. I mean, no one's doing anything. NATO is not doing anything. The UK is doing less than nothing, you know? So I think that, strategically, the way the system works is through allies. And through this kind of,

25:15that's why they call it hard and soft influence. And the USA's got plenty of hard influence, and hard power. But what about the soft power? And how do you maintain that? Right, and what kind of damage is done? Now, pardon me, says that the system will sweat it out, and that's kind of one of the good parts of democracies that you change, you know, there's a new boss in town. But, um, another part of me is maybe not so sure. So I think you can, there's legitimately, you can step back and say, hey, there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of own goals there. And then, if you go a little bit outside of that, and actually think about just the general global economy, and it's back to your points, that hey, like, um, if you take out the moral aspects of what you should be doing, or how you should be helping the Iranian people, and you put all that to a side, and yeah, people are going to be poorer. There's going to be more conflict. And as a result, you know, what's that stat? Whenever the GDP goes down, a percentage point, 100,000 people die, right? For various reasons around, you know, poverty and other things like that, and, uh, conflict and up, you know,

26:16there's a bunch of things that could happen. So yeah, that's all, that's all the play as well. Yeah, I mean, obviously, I agree with all of that. But again, like, I can't, for me, the critical question is like, if Donald Trump knew this is where we would be taking into account all of the above, not just that did you, you know, did you, did the military operation land in the targets, but the broader, you know, whether it's that, they've got like this rusted on group of people in control in Iran that, you know, are going to, you know, to your point, you know, the dinghy can hold a oil tanker and the global liquid petroleum market to... There's kind of a reason to do something as well, though. Yeah, but, uh, you know, one of the things from, like the Iraq war, right? I think you could, could have learnt, is that sometimes stability in whatever form it happens to be and is, is better than instability. And, um... Which is the problem down the road? Well, not necessarily.

27:16Like, I can see the case for some sort of, you know, action. But for, for whatever that action was going to be, and that's for people more acquainted with the situation and the various levers that could be pulled and all of that than, than, than me. But I think there's no way that the man you want in control of that is, is Donald Trump. I agree with that. I agree with that. And, like, you would want to do it with our lives. And you would want to do it methodically. And you would want to have a calculated, like, it would have to be a calculated risk. I don't think this has been a calculated risk. This has just been a, you know. Let's go. Let's have a crack, you know. But wouldn't you say that about anything, right? Like, there would be a more optimum way to do things. But maybe, it can't be done. Maybe the best way is the way that can be done. We'll be like, you know, the crazy man doing it. Okay. Every year in Australia, we have a race, a horse race called the Melbourne Cup. And as antiquated as the sounds to our listeners from other countries, virtually every Australian, above the age of 18, and even some school-aged kids,

28:17we'll have a bet of some description on the Melbourne Cup, on a horse race, when you have people who've never, who don't bet on any other horse race, any other time of the year. But for that, once a year, they'll do that, right? And there's a few ways you can bet on the Melbourne Cup. One is you can pick the horse whose name, you think sounds the best, right? Or you've got a lucky number. The other is you could just say, I just have a rule of thumb. I go for the favorite, the second favorite, or something like that, right? But, you know, you want to, you want to actually like, if this were a war, you want to be like going with the guy who's actually like, studying the form, and you have some insight, can actually make sense of all of those numbers in the form guide that tell you all these weird and wonderful things about the horses. Because on average, they're going to be making better decisions than the lucky number pickers and the ones who like funny horse names kind of thing. And I kind of feel like Donald Trump is a funny horse name kind of guy, right? He doesn't think very thoughtfully. He doesn't take advice.

29:17He surrounds himself with useful idiots who just tell him that he's great and wonderful. And that's not the recipe for success with something as complex and multifaceted as this. And even just like, yeah, okay, there's the decision to launch in. Okay, yes. That's a binary, go, no, go decision. But now there's also like, really complex tactical decisions that have to be made. And he can't make this. Well, I think he, well, I don't mean tactical in the military sense. I mean, tactical in the geopolitical sense. And he's, and he's utterly inept to do that. Well, and, yeah, and we're failing as a result. We don't know yet. Like, I mean, there's the other thing to say, like, so you're going back to the question. I think, you asked me if Trump knew everything that was going to happen. And what do we week five? Six? I don't know. If you knew everything was happening, he would never take that. He would never greenlight it now. And I think that that, I would agree with that if we are 12 months in. But not six weeks in, right? We don't, this is, this isn't such, it's a blink of an eye. Like, look at how long these conflicts go for.

30:18This is, well, that's a blink of an eye, right? I think that's where your proposition fails. Because I think Donald Trump never thought that this would be longer than a, a few weeks, right? I think he thought, you said straight away that it is going to be, you know, like months, not days. No, he's saying, ah, it will be over when I think it is, when I fill it in my bones, when, you know, a few more weeks to go, you know, like there's, this is, but then this is, this is not like bacon or pie. You know, I know it's not, but I think he thought it was. I think he thought, I think he thought, this was like, going to be a little bit like Venezuelan, right? And it could be, it could be more, well, but it's not in so many other ways because, and maybe again, this is like a superficial and, you know, first world problem kind of way of thinking about things, but like already global oil markets are fucked, and they're going to be for some time, like months and months, because even if the straight is reopened overnight

31:18tomorrow, there's already enough that's happened that it's going to have tail risk, like all the risk for, like insurers are not going to insure vessels through the straight. Production's been halted. You've got all these flying consequences, right? And I just kind of feel like Donald Trump would not have. Because he's so vain, if he knew that his popularity would drop to the kind of record lows they're at now, which I believe he's more unpopular than he's ever been at any other time of his presidency in either era, you know, so he's more unpopular than he has ever been, right? When he came off, like to be fair, it's not true, though. It is, though. It is. He's approval rating is lower than it has been at any time since he's ever been president. You're reading the man wrong, okay? He doesn't care about those polls. What he cares about the TikToks of Iranian people doing the Trump dance. He cares about the Israelis flying the Trump flag and having a Trump tower in the middle of Tel Aviv.

32:18I think he cares about that stuff. This is devotion. This is like God-like worship from a select people. I think he cares about the war. I think he cares about that, but he cares about the polls too, because he wants by that. You know how enticing it is to a man like Trump? Yeah, but he wants of Iranian people doing the Trump dance. Yeah, but there's, there's, it's the whole stuff he cares about, right? He cares about everyone loving him. He just writes the other people off his ideas. Yeah, but there's the kind of pathology works. But it's different when you win the election or, you know, there are fewer idiots than people who voted for me. But it turns out like the idiots that voted for him and our minority, right? So I kind of think that's, um, and it's all how it ends, right? That's all part of it. All right. Let's, let's, let's move on to, um, something you were triggered by, I think. Uh, you know, you used last weeks. So there's a series of headlines, um, and to be fair, I don't know the date, actually, I can, I can try and find the date.

33:18You sent it to me on the 10th of March. So it's a little bit out of date now in terms of the headlines. But I'm, I'm just going to read just for our listeners, the, um, the headlines, because it was a, it was a screenshot that you kind of reacted to in, and well, I'll let you, you can speak in your own words, how it made you feel. But this is like an ABC News screenshot. And the headlines are opponents of a round regime where two weeks of bombing has backfire. Trump says war in a round will be over when I fill it in my bones. The US is no longer directing the war against a round. So let's, I'll just pick those three headlines. There's a few others in there. And then, I guess your comment to me was, the ABC headlines so balanced at shocking. And then I, you know, I think I kind of said, well, come on, this war is a bit of a clusterfuck. Balance doesn't mean that you have to have some articles saying it's a great war. I'm not sure what

34:18the balance we had to find was. Well, look, it wasn't a nice slated thing. You know, I was just seeing the headlines. There's not one thing as a counterbalance to the positive, the achievements or the positive nature or why perhaps that this is, this is in the suit of liberation of the Iranian people. Right? Or even, I mean, we've totally forgotten about the Israelis as well, right? They get, they literally have iron dome shooting these missiles down by proxies or around, like constantly. You know, so there's a lot of things that I think that aren't giving the Australian people a balanced view of what's going on. And as a result, things get very warped and the zeitgeist is 100% to get mixed up to things. And I think that a good mental exercise would be, you know, if the Obama, the Obama presidency was doing exactly the same thing. Say the JCPOA broke down and they had to go into intervene and the similar things. They'd be gone, oh, man, how are they doing this without civilian casualties?

35:18And they're, you know, anyway. So, you know what, it's triggering to me in the same way that I felt about some of the free Palestine stuff. You know, I just think that sometimes this is exactly what the terrorists want. Right? This is exactly what the jihadists want. You know, it's part of their strategy in an asymmetric war to lower support for intervention using media and propaganda and trying to leverage community reactions to degrade support for any kind of intervention. And it feels like, you know, we are playing into their game from all these angles. And that's what just really gets me. Right? When it comes to this stuff that people have forgotten, you know, they're using their strategy. Oh, I think that's a little bit offensive in some respects. So, like, it's kind of, like, to kind of play up that string of headlines to being, like, the ABC falling for some kind of jihadist propaganda. I think it's legitimate reporting on the actual things that are going on. And, and like,

36:18The opinion headlines. Yeah, I'm not going to argue that there's not, like, views expressed in those headlines because there are. But, like, there's no longer directing the war against Iran after they came the way it's all and the, and the, make up. But I think what's fun and success for Iran. This war has been a great success for Iran. Okay. You'd have to click the link and actually read the article. But let's just limit ourselves to analyzing the, the headline, right? And I've got no idea what the actual article says. U.S. is no longer directing the war against Iran. The point of that heading is to say that they've lost control of the situation, which they have because Iran is not bending the needs to the United States. I'm just... Okay. They were... Suppose they're bending the needs. The United States is bending the needs. You said... No, no. Iran is not bending the needs to the United States. It's a war. It's two weeks. But like... The whole presumption, I believe, was that this would be over very quickly. And that's the whole premise

37:18of this thing. This is... And we haven't even talked about how Donald Trump is the party of no more forever wars, no more foreign in... Like he was literally elected on a platform of no more wars, right? And this idea that oh, we're two weeks in and nothing... You know... This is... The context of an article like this... is this is a guy who did not want to commit America to more wars, right? And you can say, well, it's only two weeks in. But... Any war, if you... I mean, when you say, oh, well, it's, you know, asking 12 months' time, like the fact that you're committing to a war that would last 12 months is like, precisely against the whole spirit of what many people in the United States elected him for, right? So, I think that's the context. I think that's relevant as well, right? Do you know that... Having all of those headlines without any bouncing headlines to the other side of the equation was it was... which was really mainly my point that if you picked up the ABC and you scroll through

38:18all the headlines, yes, you can make an argument that this is, you know, opinion and there's a certain angle on it, but it's all... But, you know, there's a lot of legitimacy. But where's the other side? I'm going to say something about don't want you to react to it in a... All right. I want to hang off everything. You just say... Hear me... Hear me out, right? I don't think Donald Trump has earned the other side, right? Because to have earned the other side, I think you have to have explained to... Not to us as Australians, but at least his own people. What he is they're trying to do. Bring him and his allies along the journey and give a sense that, hey, we do have a clear sense of purpose of what we're trying to do such that the focus isn't on him and what the fuck is he doing? What the fuck are we doing? What the fuck's going on here? And it's actually... Yeah, okay. I get it now. We're going to have a shared unified, visual mission against the enemy, which is Iran, right? And you're right.

39:18The enemy should be Iran. We should be viewing Iran as the enemy. But you can't do something like this. Not explain it. And expect commentators to clean up your mess. You've got to... You've got to set the narrative. You've got to... give clear reasons why. And that's... The work hasn't been done. And that's why I think you can't... He hasn't earned it. The administration has not earned the right to balance because they're not making the case for themselves. I get it. But I think the argument is flawed because it's not about like earning the right. It's about the national broadcaster trying to help Australians and the community make sense of it. Right? Something that is a little bit more to the tune of right or wrong people. You know? We're wrong people running it or something. Something like that, right? Like some kind of view to help provide a bit more clarity instead of reading this and going, oh man. We should not have done this. Right? Like this is just

40:18everything's fucking up and I don't understand why and all this. Like don't you think that should fall into the remit of a public broadcaster? Because what you just said around... around should be the enemy. 100% public disagree on that. I don't think there's a lot of sympathy for Iran just to be clear. I think that people see Iran a little bit like North Korea, right? So if there was like some sort of an attack on North Korea from Donald Trump, I think people would rightfully go, why the fuck did you do that? Like why the fuck did you open that? Like this is like the piece of shit in a plastic bag sitting on your doorstep that for better or worse it's better just leaving in the plastic bag, right? And if some decade comes along it opens the plastic bag and smears the shit everywhere. Yeah, the shit is the thing that we're rightfully like, you know, aggrieved about. But it's the person who opened the plastic bag who has agency who made a bad decision that we're focusing our attention on.

41:18So I don't think anyone's under any illusions that Iran is this. They are. I made. They are. Well, I disagree. I don't think so. The sympathies run deep. They see Iran as Palestine, my friend. No, I don't think that's right. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's right. I think that's right. And I think that's what the media has helped. Confusion. No, Confusion. I don't think that's right. I think that's actually quite wrong. And quiet. I think that misses the mark for me. Like, I don't see that as the case. I think, yeah. I don't, I completely disagree with that. I think there's probably some young confused people who don't know the difference. But I think anyone with half a brain, half an education knows there's a difference between what's going on here and Israel-Palestine. I want to ask you a question. Now, because I think that, even that framing that you've just thrown in is quite telling, actually. So I, you know, you would be quite upfront, I think.

42:18You're quite invested in the Israel-Palestine thing, right? Yeah, I think you would probably agree that you've got reasonably strong views, right? Yeah. About it. I don't think it would be a surprise to anyone that you're pro-Israel in the context of, you know, since October 7th, right? So as you are too. With limits, right? And I think there's lines that have been crossed that maybe have or haven't been crossed for you. I don't know. But, um, okay. So then, I think you see this very much within that context, right? I think you see what's happening now. And I think you've even said this line before, like, almost like the next chapter, right? Another chapter in the... Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. So I don't see it that way. I see it quite independently. I see it as this is a different movie we're watching, right? And so I think that's where we might have some different kind of coming from it, from a slightly different perspective. Yeah, it explains me why

43:18you think they aren't related. Because they're just different orders of magnitude in scale, right? So it's not that they're not related. It's that going after terrorists in Gaza is quite different to opening up a front with, you know, a country that can, like, grab us by the balls and squeeze them pretty hard, right? So they're quite different things, right? That's where I'm. No. So I guess my question, just to cut to the chase, is, do you think seeing it in that, in that way, right, is the third act or whatever, do you think that clouds your judgment or aids your judgment? It was blind, but now I see Hezbollah, Hamas, the Huzis, they are almost 100% funded by Iran. They are Iran. This whole thing is linked. How can it not be? They're fighting the war that's been going on, the conflict that's been going on, the garsons and the Palestinians are caught in the middle of this gigantic proxy war that is happening, and not just between Israel, but between lower the Gulf states and a lot of the Western powers and on a

44:18global stage with China and all these other, these other players is the same thing. So how, so if you're asking me, does my knowledge of that cloud my judgment versus assist? I'm going to go with the latter. Well, it's not just knowledge, though. It's like, I just, I feel like it's hard to take off your, and I'm not saying you're necessarily like team Israel in some, like, you're barricading for a sports team, but like, it's a perspective, right? It's a little bit like the, you know, the thing about where, do you want to be an organ donor? And it's like, you opt in or you opt out, right? And if you opt in, have to opt in, then you're less likely to be an organ donor that if you have to opt out, right? And I kind of feel like, at the margin, so I'm not necessarily making a claim of like, it completely sways thinking on this, right? But if you view it as like, the third chapter or the third act or whatever, then your starting point is it has to be a consistent story with the first and second acts, right?

45:19Which means that, okay, in the first act, this is my view, second act, this is my view, third act, like, I'm going to have to, to have a slightly different view or a different view, I also have to be convinced of some floor in my understanding of the first and second acts, whereas, like, said for me, like, I don't, like, I understand what you've just spoken about and the relationships, but I don't see it necessarily, like, I see it distinctly, right? And I think it's quite possible to have all of the views that you might have about Israel and, you know, the stuff that happened in Gaza and all that sort of stuff, while coming to a completely different view on this one. Yeah, that's cool. And look, I'm happy to, to kind of put on the table my thoughts around the greater narrative and how these are all connected. But again, I think that allows you to see reason. But if you're saying that makes you just hardens you up against the possibility for other other theories, then I actually want to hear the theories. Like, I want to understand what they are

46:20so I can judge them, right? Like, so if there is something that has been obfuscated or clouded by this, I'm like, I'm up for that discussion. But these ABC headlines don't say that. They just talk about the incompetence of Trump, which I will put my hat in the ring and agree with that. And you'd rather someone else have some more experience doing this, with a bit more candor and a bit more communication skills. But nothing's brought to me on the other side of substance around trying to create some clarity for the Australian people that actually there are elements of this intervention that are important and that actually you're not going to get any peace in the Middle East without dealing with this problem. I think though, where perhaps your sense around this and this is what I would probably say that I would probably observe is from a couple of things you've said, is I do think, and this is just my view, you don't obviously, I'm not necessarily trying to convince you, otherwise. But like, I get the sense like your instincts around things like the public's attitude towards Iran. Like, because you see this is,

47:21there's a continuity between this and Israel, Palestine, that you kind of, and it's so easy to like, typecast people who are opposed to Trump for this war, are the same kind of people who would be out there, like, free, free Palestine from the river to the sea, that kind of thing, right? And no doubt there's like, overlap and all that stuff. But I think mainstream, mainstream Australia, aren't like that. Like, I think mainstream Australia, like me, who think that this is like a total cook-up and like, could have been, could have gone well, and if it had gone well, we'd be saying, oh, okay, actually, that was, you know, but this was, this was the role of the dice that like, he had to roll or one or two, but three, four, five, and six looked pretty shit. So it probably shouldn't have rolled the dice in the first place, right? And it's got nothing to do with your attitudes towards Israel or Palestine. It's just, it's a different conflict. It's a different set of circumstances. And just to give you, think something you've sort of, sort more put forward of like,

48:22well, what's the other side for like, what do we do? We just do nothing, kind of thing, or let it, you know, how do we deal with this thing? And like, you know, I think that's hard to answer. But I don't think we had any great urgency, like, I don't think we had any, like, there was no imminent thread, like, it wasn't like, we have to do this right now or else. This wasn't like, sometimes buying yourself more time is the best thing you could do, right? So whatever that looked like in practice, you know, like, we're pretty dulled in. I mean, you've probably done a little bit more of research or, you know, reading or whatever, you've done on this than I have to understand it. But I'm pretty dulled in, but I don't really understand why it had to be done this way, right? So if I don't get it, the guy who's just paid, like, 300 bucks to fill out his, you know, mega truck or whatever they have in America, certainly isn't going to understand it. Yeah, I think that's a big problem. Look, I agree with that, right? And I guess I just see this more outside, it crosses the boundaries of economic impact

49:22and political impact for me. Right? Like, there are other elements going on here. There is a bit of a, a battle of ideologies that, and that, I guess in the end of the day, that's what I'm more invested in. You know, I really do not want to see the, you know, like the jihadis and the kind of relativism that forms around it to support the manipulation of our population. And you can say, you know, you find that offensive, but I feel like the, the infiltration is already there. And I just hate seeing it. It really triggers me. You know, and I guess I would just say that when you traverse those things, I think that the, the other main factor of play here is that people just so, they hate Trump so much, that they just can't stand. They, they are unable to see the forest from trees, so to speak, around what could be the right cause with the wrong person doing it. But, like, this religious thing, right? Like, now, there's obviously, you know, religious extremism and, you know, like, kind of the jihadis sort of stuff. And I,

50:22I'm probably closer to you that that's an issue that's kind of not given its Jews. Like, I am probably, like, on the same page with you on that. But I actually don't think the Iranian regime is that. I, I think they certainly were a religious, like, revolution. Like, its roots are religious, right? But I think over time and over the decades, I don't think that's where the religious extremists sort of come from, right? I think, like, the Iranian regime is, is really, like, they're just, they're like any other power-hungry. You just see them like the CCP, right? They're just, they're going to survive, not anything more. The fact that the regime hasn't collapsed is testament to what they've got going there, right? Which is this, it's this quite complex and sophisticated and robust political system, where there's people who get what they need from the regime. They've got all of the right people with the influence and power, like, tied up. It's a very solid stable, like, it's politically stable, right?

51:23And I think that's where the success is. And in some ways, I think of it, it was purely religious, and the whole, like, thing of, like, committing to religious ideology is more just that, like, loyalty test or whatever. But it's, it's actually not the, I don't think the people involved in the regime are, I mean, the actual, they are taller, who was, you know, what was his name, Kamehni. He was... Kamehni. Yeah, well, I'm not going to try that. He wasn't even, like, a complete cleric, right? They had to... I don't know, didn't you have... I don't know what the words are, but didn't he have to... Yeah. Before he assumed that post, he had to... He was just the president, right? I get it. But we go with this, Andy, but I really wouldn't place my bets on the fact that Iran, like, was, theocratic thing you would... No, no, but I'm just, I'm just trying to say, like, I think they're opposed to regime change, because regime change mean that people who are enriched by the regime seeks to be enriched. Like, I think that's the primary reason why they stick pretty solid

52:24together and remain stable. It's not because of religious fanaticism that, like, you don't find... And I'm happy to be proven wrong on this, but you don't find many Iranians who blow themselves up as suicide bombers, right? It's not... Like, I feel like they kind of... they weaponize religion rather than... Religion weaponizes them. Is your theory that the terror proxies have no relate, like, so they're different from the terror proxies, so they just hire the... the G-hardy Sugs, but they have nothing to do with them. Is that... I have no doubt that they're pulling strings and making it all happen, so yeah, I've got like, I'm not arguing that. But it's not the Iranians who are blowing themselves up. It's their... Well, the pawns... Yeah, providing... The pawns die first. The resources... Right, like, the... But you're... You're trying to say, though, that, say, Hamas, real... real G-hardies, or, yeah, Haswolo and the Houthis and stuff, you're saying that they don't carry that same G-hardy flavor into the Iranian T-R-C?

53:25I'm saying that... The Iranian regime, the power structures in Iran, I'm not sure... are religious fanaticists in the way that they could be portrayed, because they're presented as theocratic. Like I said, they weaponize religion, not the other way around. It's the religion doesn't recognize them. So, I think... I don't... Where does that... What is that impact? Well, I think it's just... It doesn't, for me, feed into the same kind of... Like, you know how you were saying, like, you know, G-hardism is like a real problem, and it's quite, you know... And I actually grew that, but I don't think that's where the problem lies, right? I think it's easy to... Like you could say, that's where the problem lies, because this is the state that's funding it, right? You know, and I made a comment, I don't know if it made it to broadcast, but I made a comment that, like, in a way, like, the people of Iran that were, you know, I think having pro-regime, or, like, morning the death of the

54:25idol or whatever, that they reminded me, like, Romans, like, in the Vatican, right? Like, they had... It had that vibe to it. Yeah. It wasn't like... Yeah, and it didn't seem... It almost seemed... Not like, well, maybe you're almost normal, right? I had this sort of moment of, like, I can have an anchor point to understand this regime in a way that maybe I wouldn't... Previously, this isn't, like, an Osama bin Laden kind of situation, right? This is... They're primary interests. Well, he was a Sunni, and there she is, so... Well... But maybe the key point, though, is that if people care about themselves, and they regime, gives you something to work with, right? Because you're negotiating with people who value life, who value material things, who value their status and authority, right? And the problem with jihadism is you can't negotiate with those people. And I know Sam Harris has this line around, well, it's, you know, we can't give jihadis, like, nuclear weapons. And, like, of course, no, I want to run to have nuclear weapons,

55:25but I don't think it's quite that. Yeah. No, I've got... I mean, I follow suit on that, thinking. I just think it leads to, unfortunately, a similar outcome. So even if you were to say that, Sam Harris's thing, okay, well, say Iran does have a nuclear weapon. They're not actually jihadis, right? They just employ them. So it's still... The calculus of threat is still very similar, unfortunately, because they will use that where they need to, right? And yes, I totally understand the whole thing about the negotiation. And we'll see that. I think that they will negotiate in some way with the USA, right? They have to. And I think they will. But, I mean, going back to it, I just kind of... I think that when it comes to this kind of stuff, it's very, very... The shifting sounds of what you can't say and where the support is, happens in a way, for a... I remember it was a Q&A, probably maybe a week after the whole October the 7th thing happened years ago now.

56:25And one of the prominent politicians that were on the panel were pretty much just caught up and said, Hey, look, when push comes the shove, you've got to throw your support behind Israel. They're the only democracy in the area. All these other players, all these other players and governments they repressed their people, they're the... Israel's our guy. They're the only democracy there. Think about saying that now. Think about any mainline audition, getting up a Q&A and saying that now. You know what I mean? Like, it's just... But it's still true. Right? And I think that you just... It's tough with this situation. There's something unique about this part of the world, this conflict that just inflames the passions of people to a degree that is not... There's beyond what in accordance with what they know of the world or they understand, and I'd throw my own emotional reaction, not what I'm saying on the pod in regards to this. But there is something about this, right? And this is very hard to escape the vortex of. So one more question for you is,

57:26now you've... I think you're a bit more open-minded about the merits of the strategic merit of this than maybe I am. But... It's your conservative rich showing, I think. The status quo and the equilibrium, no matter how dysfunctional is still better than what scale turbulence. Unless you have confidence that your turbulence is going to get you to your destination. But if you can't have confidence that your planes are not going to crash on the journey, yeah, I think that's probably my position. But you've also equally listed out a whole bunch of like, you know, things that have not gone to plan, whether it's in the second or third order kind of impacts. But like on a sort of scale of like zero to ten, where like five is neutral, ten is really support, zero is completely opposed, fives in the middle, and whether it's support or opposed, I don't know, but you know what I mean? It's that, do you think it was the right call? Do you think it was the wrong call?

58:26Where are you with five being bang in the middle, neutral? If I base it on the Iranian people, I... Well, just, well, don't even base it on that, just base it on whatever. The whole of things that you care about, not any particular narrow factor. The pause is factoring the, some of the ugly path, but I would say, I would say a seven. Has in supporting? Okay. All right. The reason I want to ask you that isn't to get into a debate over whether it should be four, three, or seven, or six, or five. But more to then frame out my next little piece of the puzzle, which is like Donald Trump, because I think to the rest of the world, and you've touched on this, this is just seen as like, this is like another clusterfuck from Donald Trump. And this is just another chapter in like, what the fuck, you know, what are we living with right now, right? With him in office, right? And now if you see this as a seven,

59:27and you might kind of, you could potentially hold the two as true at the same time. You could possibly say, it's a clusterfuck, like Donald Trump is shit and there's a clusterfuck from him, because if they had have done ABCD, AFG differently, and he had a bad, slightly different cause, it could have been an eight, nine, or a tenet. Whereas you're at a seven, with the difference being Donald Trump's incompetence. So that's not, doesn't really you out, but it makes you, you know, given probably, there's a reasonable chance that any other person would have pulled the trigger at all, that you could be seeing this as like, a good thing, like in his favor, right? But I think, like, do you think, cause I would say this has to seal the deal, like if there's anyone in any doubt, and I know that he's still got this base of support, and there's gonna be like a bunch of morons, like who, for whatever reason, just can't see another way when it comes to Trump, right? They can't, they just can't see him forward to his, or they love that he's just like, they're so disengaged from the real world, they're disengaged from what the alternative is,

1:00:29that they almost don't give a fuck, and they're happy to like, piss all over everyone else, and it kind of, it almost makes them feel good kind of way, so they're like, Trump, cause he's like, fucking everything up for everyone else, like almost they, they kind of enjoy that aspect, right? So there's always that, gonna be that cohort, and that might be a third of the population in America. It could be as high as that, but it's the Joe Rogans, it's the, it's the kind of like, the anti-work, kind of right, right wing kind of leaning, but not necessarily cause they like Trump, but just cause they're a bit more kind of conservative or whatever, maybe they don't like the Democrats, they don't like work staff, all that sort of stuff, but they're not pro-Trump necessarily. Yeah. That cohort, surely now must like, have really like, wake up to themselves about this guy, right? I'll probably go back to the point you raised, where the average punter is uninformed, doesn't think deeply about these things, self-motivated, self-interested, and all that really matters is how it ends.

1:01:31So whether the intervention or the wall was good or not, it's whether we get a good deal out of the end of it, right? So do they walk away with C's control of the, you know, the oil islands and the straight and the new regime that answers the call when Trump, you know, rings, or does it go horribly? Do we have a protracted, you know, conflict and no one can go to Abu Dhabi anymore and no one can go to Dubai and drive around the Lamborghini? Do you think there's that many Americans in like the Midwest that are going to be like, ah, shit, I can't go to Abu Dhabi anymore? Well, yeah, the oil may be more. Anyway, any machination of that, right? There's some of those mega people probably, like the moment Trump, I don't even know if it was, was it the US or Israel? Killed, assassinated the Ayatollah. Maybe that's enough for them already. It's like, oh, oh, president, fuck yours up. You know, like, anyway, all I'm saying is I think that it'll just depend how it ends. People like winning, right?

1:02:33Or the perception of winning. So whether they believe they have won or not is the real test of this. If they will, that's why there's reprehensible as Venezuela was. People like it because they won. So do you think by the midterms that there will be a clear winner? No, and he's going to get fucked in the midterms. But like I said, in terms of legacy, it just depends on whether they get there, right? And that's not everyone should be hoping for us. Not a situation where America just wins despite the rest of the world's interests. But everyone should be hoping that now that we're in this that we can get some good outcomes. Right, and I don't think people are like, I think people are so clouded by the hatred of Trump that they're like, they're hoping this thing's going to stay. But they're not kayaking. Can we just like, can we just take out the word like the framing that they clouded by their view of Trump? Like they're actually not clouded by that. If you're hoping this will fail because you want to rub it in his face, then they cloud. They see extremely clearly when it comes to Trump, right? They're not clouded at all. You confuse Andy.

1:03:34That's all you are confused. Not clouded, clouded your confused. They see Trump for what he is and with absolute 2020 vision, right? And it's. It's okay to hate him. It's okay. Like, I understand. Like, well, human, right? Like, you can hate him. You can hate him with such a deep white, hot rage that you want him to fail. No one hates Donald Trump but wants to pay $20 a liter for petrol. So the two aren't, and I'm using obviously that as the proxy for the outcome of the war. So no one is going to. No, the lips have EVs now anyway. They can't charge because they can't keep the grid on. Well, I think the key thing is, I don't think many people who see Donald Trump for what he is are like thinking, oh, yes, the Iranians, like, they're not like collapsing yet. Like, I think my views are pretty typical, right? My views are, what are motherfucking moron in the White House? Tick. But fuck, I hope if they're going to do this thing,

1:04:34I hope this regime like collapses pretty quickly or negotiates whatever, like comes the table pretty damn quickly because I don't want this anymore, right? And to be fair, it's not, I'm not actually worried about, like, we talk about petrol and all that kind of stuff. I drive a Toyota Coral to work, like, two kilometers, right? I'm not impacted by the fuel prices. I've filled up once, since this war began, and I still have half a tank of petrol, right? I'm not impacted by this fuel situation, right? But we haven't even started to feel the impacts that are going to come through, like, supply chains collapsing through, like, plastics fertilizers, like, all of that stuff's yet to flow through. And it's probably not clear yet to people just how bad this is going to get. And I think if people look at the price of petrol and they're like, oh, well, you know, yeah, I prefer to pay $80 a liter, but, you know, if it's $2.80, an extra dollar a liter, well, I'll just suck it up for a little while

1:05:35and we'll get better, and, you know, we'll get over it, right? That's not what we're going to be experiencing over the next few months. It's going to get the price of everything is going to go up. Things are going to be unavailable on the shelves, things you used to buying. There's certain products which are going to double or triple in price, not everything, but some things are. And this is going to be bad, and we're going to, like, strap ourselves in. Use a strap on? Well, not with the petrol chemical markets, impacting availability of plastics, soft plastics. Look, I'm not accusing you. I'm not accusing you of being clouded, but my premise was that if you hate the situation so much with Trump, that in your heart of heart, you're kind of hoping it's a big failure because you hate Trump so much. I don't think that's what I mean. No, but I don't think that's... Yeah, I don't think there are many people who actually think that way. Like, I think, you know, a lot of people would... It's implicit in the comment I made earlier where most presidents would not have done this, right? Like, most presidents didn't... In fact, no other president has done this.

1:06:35America's had, you know, 50 years to do this. 40 years. 40, 50 years to do something. Well, bullshit. And none of them have done that, right? And I think that reflects the strategic calculus that actually exists today still. So I kind of think that, like, it's a bit like it was never a good... This was never a good bet to make. I think there was some urgency. That's the problem. Well, that would be something that would be good to have explained to people because no one has done that. But, you know, Little Marco has tried to. They just echo the line, right? They don't... It's not really... Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is hard to do. It's hard to know. Look, I want to believe... I actually do want to believe your characterization at all. But I've just... I've come across real people, Andy. You know, like, it's not just bots on Facebook posts and stuff. And YouTube videos. I think, you know, you see them. We've got our fucking straight end of the year. Shouting, globalized into party, you know.

1:07:36Yeah, but she's not representative, right? She is, like, a product of the extreme left, right? And I think that... I'm just saying that they walk among us. They're not... The way that you're... You're just kind of betraying this really even keel. None of the things that we're seeing, you know? I don't know. Yeah, but it can't be what you see on a university campus or on YouTube, like, at the extremes of YouTube. Like, it has to be... What do everyday people in the office think about it? What do people... What does the average person on the train carriage you're sitting in have to think about it? And those people are not grace-tame, you know what I mean? Well, it goes to my point about maybe the strategic failings of this. That no one can deny that when it comes to the rates of how blatant kind of anti-zionism, anti-zionist support there is right now is just like, it's gone through the roof. And maybe that's the strategic failure of losing the PR war and the actual actions that have been taken. Yeah, but I don't think Israel

1:08:36did itself any favors, right? That's what I mean. That's what I mean. Like, you know, it's... Yeah. And to be clear, it's not just all PR. That's why I say it's actions as well. It's not PR, just PR spin. So I'm gonna take a moment to like I was having a look at the stats, the listener stats for the middle. And I saw that three out of four of our listeners are actually from the United States. So I'm gonna have like a moment to speak to those in America because this is probably an angle that you probably don't hear that much about. But it's like, you know, I'm sure in America you hear the American angle, right? But maybe not like some of the other shenanigans going on. Like you have Donald Trump saying like making pretty outrageous kind of comments about how like countries like Australia aren't doing anything to help them. When literally like, we've not even been asked to do it. Like they said, oh, we asked Australia to help. Like literally haven't... It's like, like,

1:09:36it just complete ridiculous made up statements. And you should anticipate my needs. And also, you know, the whole NATO thing like, oh yeah, America's gonna go to learn on this thing with Israel on this thing. And then like complain to NATO after the fact for not... Like what the fuck? Like what... Well, he asked for some kind of comments. Like, clean up their mess, you know? It's, I don't know. I just think this whole thing's... Get your own oil. Get your own oil. Quite outrageous. Like, let's fuck up the global oil supply chain. Let's fuck it up really. And then like, you know, and then complain afterwards because you're not gonna help us, like, yeah, I don't know. It's really quite ridiculous. But don't you just marvel at the system of democracy? Like in four years, this will all be over. It won't, though, because... Well, not over. We'll get a little reset. We'll get a little... Yeah, but the reason is not over, though,

1:10:36is because you can have a trust in America every again. Like, until... Like, they trust in Andy. Come on. Until... They pay the bills. You can't trust America anymore because... Oh, what's NATO gonna do without trusting America when they don't do anything anyway? There's no continuity of... What do we put out of August? Well, I think we probably genuinely have to entertain. Like, we have to plan for the fact that that thing's not gonna work. Now, we might... Similar to NATO, we might have a... a view that, well, we... You know, we... Even as a deterrence mechanism, it's better to have it than... You know, not to have it. But... But I think we would probably be saying, well, we need, like, plan B and C and D and... we need to be self-sufficient. Get macaron back on the line. You know, I think... Yeah, anyway. What are you reckon Kevin Rods doing right now? What's he doing now? Well, my understanding is he wants to be the next secretary general of the United Nations, so...

1:11:36he's mounting his campaign. You think you just want to retire? Yeah. Relevance, deprivation syndrome, I think. Do you think there's any kind of coincidence that all this kicked off, is it when porn was blocked? I don't think they aligned. I don't think the dates are. Pretty hard. All right. Go ahead. Okay.