The Iran War: Interceptors and a Costly Mistake || Peter Zeihan

Hey everybody, Peter Z here coming to you from Colorado at home. I'm about to head to the airport just a little early.

Anyway, overnight uh day four of the war. We've had significantly more

war. We've had significantly more attacks. Uh a lot of drones, a lot of

attacks. Uh a lot of drones, a lot of drones. Um and quite a few missiles as

drones. Um and quite a few missiles as well. Um the pattern that has erupted

well. Um the pattern that has erupted now uh makes maybe me think that the Trump administration hadn't thought this all the way through when they launched their attack a few days ago. The issue

is targeting. Um, the Iranians can't really go after US vessels because they don't have the guidance that's necessary and the Israelis are a long way away.

So, there's plenty of times to detect and shoot down drones and missiles, especially drones. Uh, but for the Arab

especially drones. Uh, but for the Arab side of the Persian Gulf, the story is different. So, what we've got going on

different. So, what we've got going on is instead of going after the Israelis or the Americans, the Iranians are going after the Baharinis and the Kuwaitis and the Amiradis and the Saudis. Um, and all

of these countries have purchased US Patriot missile systems and even some THADs. Uh, but those interceptors are

THADs. Uh, but those interceptors are expensive in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the Shaheds that are

of dollars. And the Shaheds that are being thrown against them are less than 50,000. So, in order to reliably shoot

50,000. So, in order to reliably shoot down a projectile, you often have to shoot more than one um interceptor. And

best guess, and it is a guess, is at the beginning of the conflict, the collective Arab side of the Gulf probably had over 2,000 interceptors, but they've already intercepted over

1,000 things coming at them. So, we're

already getting to a point where the uh cupboard is getting a little bare. And

it seems that the Americans are not replenishing any of those stocks in order to pressure the Arabs to join the war more directly. But honestly, there's not a lot they could bring to the table.

Um, only the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia even have an air force that's worthy of the name. And their

pilots are inexperienced and few. And

honestly, they would probably get in the way, as we saw yesterday when the Kuwaitis accidentally shot down a trio

of American jets. Uh what this means is very soon, probably within a week, uh the Gulfies are going to have to decide to just not shoot down the sheds at all

and focus on the ballistic missiles that can cause more damage and have more accuracy. And in doing that, you will

accuracy. And in doing that, you will see waves of shaheds be able to start targeting energy assets, whether it's loading platforms or refineries or even the fields themselves, pumping stations.

And that's, you know, that's going to be more than 10 million barrels a day. And

the direct crosshair is perhaps as much as 20 based on how things are going at the time. And in the meantime, straight

the time. And in the meantime, straight of horror moves closed. Insurance

companies nullled all uh insurance. So,

nobody's coming or going. So, we may be getting that energy crisis sooner than we thought. Uh the easy way around this,

we thought. Uh the easy way around this, of course, is develop cheaper interceptors. And there's only one

interceptors. And there's only one country in the world that has that.

That's Ukraine. And we are seeing very clearly that the United States's decision a year ago to cut off military connections um has a big price. Uh the

Brits who still have relations with the Ukrainians that are good in the military sphere have repositioned several Ukrainian assets including Ukrainian staff uh into the Gulf to help shoot

down some of these projectiles. But give

you an idea of how little uh the United States has invested in this technology.

uh fifth fleet headquarters in Bahrain uh got hit in the second day of the war and a radar dome got blown up which kind of surprised me that something got through to an actual military base and then I realized that there was no point defense at the base something that the

Ukrainians have been doing around their cities as a matter of course. So uh the American decision to not engage the Ukrainians where they have been defending themselves against Russian

launched Iranian shahed drones now for 3 years. This is where the knowledge base

years. This is where the knowledge base sits in the world to defeat this technology uh as having a real price because that technology, those tactics, that experience hasn't filtered up to

the US military and then down to US military deployments and now the United States is facing the source of the Shaheds headon and all it has is expensive interceptors that exist in limited number which makes it very very

strange that the Shahed facilities that are building the drones in Iran still haven't been targeted. Um, but more on that as we move forward with the war.

Okay, finishing this one up from the airport lounge in Denver. Um, the other big news is that yesterday morning, Secretary of State Rubio testified to

Congress to comply with the War Powers Resolution, uh, notifying Congress of what was going on. The biggest thing that has come out of that is that uh he said that the United States actually had

planned significantly heavier attacks in the days and weeks to come and that he expected the entire conflict to last four to five weeks. Now this is notification to Congress. This is not battle plans. So there's absolutely no

battle plans. So there's absolutely no reason to expect the Trump administration and the defense department to follow that to the letter by any stretch of the imagination. Just

kind of interesting the story that's being told to Congress. Uh we've got a number of senators and reps on both sides of the aisle who are pretty aggroed at the idea that this conflict has happened at all and we're expecting

a bipartisan war powers act resolution which aims to restrict uh the American military's ability to prosecute the operation moving forward. Uh the chances

of that passing are pretty good, but the chances of it being a veto proof majority are almost zero at this point, barring something significantly uh

jarring happening in the next 48 hours.

All right, that's it for today. Bye. Hey

y'all, Peter Zion here coming to you from Colorado. And as you know, there's

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