How The Iran War Actually Ends

[00:00:00]There's an old saying, "May you live in interesting times." It sounds kind of like a blessing, but it was always meant as a curse, but here we are. We've had nine, 10 nights, days in a row of of strikes against Iran. We've got a full naval blockade of Iranian ports. Iran has transferred thousands of centrifuges for nuclear enrichment into a new nuclear facility that is so deep that we don't have the ability to bunker bust it like we did the prior locations. Also, we've got the Houthis are now seeing a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and affecting the Red Sea, similar to what has happened in the Strait of Hormuz with Iran. Also, we've had multiple US soldiers injured and killed in strikes. What I want to do something a little bit different today.

[00:00:44]Instead of just telling you what is happening and what I think of it and how it's going to affect us here at home, I want to talk more about giving you a framework to understand the four possible directions that I think this is heading towards, how likely each one of these scenarios is, and the signs to look for so that you, way after this video's you've done you've watched this and you've moved on, you'll be able to look at this framework and use it to tell what path we're going down, and what the likely outcomes are going to mean for your families, gas prices, food, inflation, financial situation, and potentially preparedness here at home. So, let's get into it.

[00:01:25]>> [music] >> Welcome back to the one row. Here on this channel, we try to focus on real practical preparedness to help you and your family be better prepared for whatever the world is going to throw at you. And right now, Iran is happening.

[00:01:37]It is escalating again, and we need to talk about it. Now, the framework I mentioned in the intro, it's called a decision tree, but before we dive into that, I think there's three things that have kind of come about that are key factors in why I made this video and why we need to talk about this. The first is something called or a location called Pickaxe Mountain, Pickaxe Mountain. So, Iran has reportedly transferred thousands of uranium enrichment centrifuges from prior locations to this underground facility at Pickaxe Mountain. Now, this site is four more deep than anything that we've ever tried to bunker-bust before. When we built the bunker-busters that when we hit Fordo, for example, those were purposely built for the eventuality of us having to attack those nuclear facilities. This new one is 100 m deeper than those or at least 100 m below the bedrock, and none of our regular uh conventional munitions have the capability of directly impacting that site. Now, the second thing is that the Houthis in Yemen are, and this just broke today, they have now claimed that the Red Sea is closed for shipping, that there's now a maritime blockade in the Red Sea. Uh there is a very narrow choke point that leads uh from uh from the ocean into the Red Sea. It's called Bab al-Mandab uh Strait. It is the choke point similar to the Strait of Hormuz, but it's on the other side of Saudi Arabia. And if the Houthis do successfully close this while Hormuz is also significantly disrupted, global shipping is going to really struggle because during the conflict, Saudi Arabia and some of the other Gulf countries were pipelining uh oil from the uh essentially the East Coast to the West Coast and then putting them on ships on the West Coast. Well, if the Houthis are going to block that avenue as well, we have a massive massive problem globally on our hands.

[00:03:32]And the third is that the IRGC, uh one of the uh Quds Force commanders warned in June that continued escalation would trigger a response by the entire Iranian coalition, which would include Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, um some of the militias in Iraq, excuse me, and and potentially some others across the region uh to create a security belt from the Strait of Hormuz to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

[00:03:59]Now that we understand these three key inputs that are kind of breaking or at least critical to this, let's talk more about the decision tree because it's simply a way to map out a situation where there's multiple potential outcomes are possible and that there's specific events along the routes um that kind of lead one to the next. So think of it like a road map where you're currently at an intersection with four different roads in front of you. Each road leads somewhere different and as you progress down a particular road, you're going to have signs along the road that indicate uh where you're at in that process. Now, if for some reason the signs don't align with that particular route, well, guess what? You probably should have gone down a different route in the decision tree.

[00:04:44]And in a conflict like this one, watching the news day-to-day without some kind of framework like this is is like getting turn-by-turn directions without ever actually being able to look at a map. There the headlines, they feel significant, but if you don't have a way to know whether it's moving the situation toward a resolution or toward escalation or toward some other thing entirely, you're just kind of lost. As the situation changes day-to-day, I want you to have this map in your brain, this mental model. And once you understand that there's these four possible directions the conflict can go, every development, every headline you see or hear about in the news, it becomes a data point that's going to help you either confirm that you're on a that we're on a particular route or challenge where you think we were so that you now believe that maybe this other route is the more likely one. Before we walk the branches and we're going to talk about each of the four the four branches in this in this model, there is one part of this that I do want to bring up and it's that the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, we've talked about this many times now, is at the lowest level since 1983.

[00:05:48]Commercial crude inventories are also dangerously low at this point. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve itself creates a hard deadline for a resolution to this because the administration cannot allow the emergency reserve to hit bottom while the horror moves issue remains a problem. But if this happens, there won't be a gradual increase. It'll be a true systemic shock.

[00:06:10]But I don't want to dive too much in that. We talked about it. Go look at some of my other videos where I've talked more about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or the Oklahoma commercial oil fields, etc. But just keep that in the back of your mind as we talk about this scenario.

[00:06:23]Okay, so the first branch is a negotiated exit. And again, I think this is the least likely. If this were to happen, there would have to be an MOU that both parties could agree to and actually follow. Then that would advance into some sort of true ceasefire working toward a long-term agreement, right? Iran is not negotiating, in my opinion, from a position of genuine willingness to concede on the things that actually matter to the United States that would form the basis of a framework for them to come to an agreement on a ceasefire.

[00:06:58]Basically, every time over the last 47 odd years of this lingering potential conflict between the US and Iran, they have used any kind of agreement to buy time, to regroup, restock, advance nuclear capability. And we saw that that even during the MOU, they were trying to fortify Pickaxe Mountain. They were moving the centrifuges into Pickaxe Mountain. So, they had zero intent of abiding by the MOU. And this is a consistent pattern that they have done. They'll take what's offered and then they'll violate what's been agreed to and use that diplomatic window of negotiation to further their goals. So, even in the event of a temporary ceasefire, and I'm sure we will have another ceasefire at some point soon and maybe another MOU, but I don't think it's going to hold. But if we start going down that path and signs are there, some of the signs that you want to look for would be Pakistani or Qatari statements saying that we've got the basis for a framework.

[00:07:58]You'd see, you know, potential verbage come out of Iranian state media talking about, you know, being a little bit less belligerent in their comments. You'd hear, you know, Trump pausing strikes maybe. And if this kind of stuff happens and again I I think it will at some point to a little bit of an extent, it's not going to stop anything. There won't be a negotiated exit to this, I don't believe. Now, moving on, the next option, the second option of the decision tree, the next fork in the road, as it were, would be direct military action by Israel. Now, I don't know if you've noticed this, but since the MOU has fallen apart, Israel has for the most part stayed out of it and also Iran has magically not attacked Israel. There was one rocket that came kind of close, but their discipline, Iran's discipline to not strike Israel so far isn't because they don't want to. Israel has come out and said, "If you touch us, we will respond with everything we have, nuclear sites, regime infrastructure targets, whatever it is." And Iran does not want to fight that right now while they're playing games with us. That doesn't mean that Israel doesn't have its limits.

[00:09:10]Iran has clearly said that if they get atomic weapons, they want to use them immediately against Israel. They just want to kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea. That's not what I want, but that's what they've said. And so if they get if Iran gets to the point where Israel feels compelled that that they're close to a nuclear weapon, they will act whether it be with or without our permission. And Israeli targeting doctrine against Iran's nuclear program would be comprehensive and final in ways that some of our strikes since the MOU fell apart has not been. But if we start to go down that road, what you will see would be uh Iranian missiles or drones starting to strike Israeli territory again. You'd start to see Israeli uh Air Force uh you know, doing strikes uh against Iran. Uh you'd probably see calls from President Trump or those others in the administration uh asking for Israel to uh temper or restrain their response, stuff like that. If this happens, I think we'll see an immediate spike in energy prices. I think we'll see uh crude prices well over 100 bucks within days, likely pushing 120 bucks um within a week. And I think we would start seeing significant disruption.

[00:10:23]This would This would lead to a potential mass escalation. The next one is a managed stalemate, and I think it's the second most likely in the near term.

[00:10:32]This is similar to the Korea scenario.

[00:10:34]So, neither side achieves its stated objectives, um and nobody's willing to really escalate it to the next level, either.

[00:10:42]It's kind of where we are, and it requires Iran to absorb continued military pressure without activating its terror network. Um the US would continue to to bomb, um and we would accept, you know, our current elevated energy prices, and the cost of ongoing operations. The problem with this branch, though, is that both sides have incentives pushing against this from being the true outcome. The US I I don't think we can actually sustain our strategic petroleum reserve situation indefinitely, right? I believe we've got about 11 weeks left at the current rate before we hit the legal minimum. Um and we once we hit that legal minimum, it's going to be extremely hard for the administration to use that to uh act as a shock absorber for energy prices. Uh also, you've got uh, Iran's economic situation. Uh, they, you know, since the blockade is now back in effect essentially and they're not able to ship or receive things uh, through the Strait of Hormuz uh, in significant numbers at least. It is weakening the regime and that regime only has so much longer that it can um, you know, pay its pay its soldiers, pay its people, et cetera, et cetera. So, for this one to happen, I think you're going to look at strikes.

[00:11:58]Uh, you're going to see just a continued stable tempo of strikes without anything really happening up or down.

[00:12:06]I think that in that in this case, I think oil's going to probably stay in the $75 to $85 range. Gas prices are probably going to stay right around $3.75 to $4 nationally. Uh, it's really just a continuation of where we are and I think it is fairly likely, but not the most likely. And the fourth branch in the road and what I think is the most likely near-term term outcome is uh, is a significant escalation over the coming weeks. This is where I think this is going to go and this is where all the indicators that I'm looking at personally uh, and in all my research uh, support what I'm saying right now.

[00:12:42]Because the US has a strategic imperative to stabilize and reduce the drawdown on the strategic oil reserve.

[00:12:48]It needs to get gas prices to drop and remain below $4 a gallon. We can absorb it being over $4 a gallon as an economy for a couple of weeks. The government cannot keep releasing the emergency reserves indefinitely and as we get closer and closer to that minimum threshold, uh, it creates a hard timeline for the administration to either move decisively to resolve the conflict or to essentially go hog wild uh, and force an end to the conflict one way or the other. And by hog wild, I should probably call that decisive action. I think that's the more correct military term. Now, that's all from the US perspective, but from Iran, they have their own causes for escalation as well.

[00:13:33]Um basically, Iran is at the point where it has two options. It can either accept our terms, which it is the regime has said they're not going to, or to expand the conflict. They can absorb so much only so much for so long, and at that point it becomes a crisis situation where they need to draw in their partners in some way, you know, to have the Houthis block the Bab el-Mandeb strait, to have uh you know, Hamas and Hezbollah to start operations against Israel in some form or fashion to cause distractions there. Uh maybe it's uh having you know, have Russia uh start rattling their saber more in Ukraine or or you know, do some sort of decisive operation up in Ukraine or threaten action against Poland, something like that. Uh it could be China um you know, putting pressure on Taiwan or um you know, playing around with the idea of a blockade. And And again, not that Russia and China are going to do those things, but just things to cause us here in the US or the US administration to back down some. In addition to all of that, the Pickaxe Mountain thing is going to become a main new mainstream news focus point over the next couple of days and weeks.

[00:14:41]Uh because basically, they've built this facility in a location where we can't easily blow it up like we did the prior ones. If Iran is they've got the they've got the you know, thousands of centrifuges in there. If they can get the nuclear material into Pickaxe Mountain, which we don't know if they have or not, but if they do, and they're able to start doing the refinement quickly, the it leaves the US and Israel with only so many options before they may have to use weapons and or tactics that we are extremely reluctant to use. So, all of those potential things are things that you're going to want to be on the lookout for for this scenario.

[00:15:19]Um and this this scenario presents, I think, the worst shock to our system, our economy, and the global economy as a whole.

[00:15:28]I think you're going to see crude oil prices easily past 100 bucks very, very quickly. I think it's likely going to go past 120 up into the 130s or 40s very quickly.

[00:15:38]And that's going to cause a massive spike in gasoline prices nationally. The national average will probably be well over $5. So, now that you have a framework in your mind, when you see news articles, when you see headlines, hopefully it helps you to piece things better to understand, you know, the Houthis doing the Red Sea thing, you know, what that's going to happen over the next couple of days, what targets is the what targets are the US striking within Iran, what is Hezbollah going to activate, is that a potential thing, what happens with China and Russia, do they do some military drills or demonstrations to draw our attention or to put potential pressure on us.

[00:16:17]Those are the things that you're going to want to keep your eye out for and amongst others that are going to help you understand what branch of the the decision tree of the fork in the road that we're going to be going down.

[00:16:29]Anyway, I hope this was helpful. If it was, please [music] hit that like button. Subscribe to the channel for more content like this. Leave a comment below. Let me know [music] what path you think we're going to be going down over the next, say, 30 days.

[00:16:42]>> [music] >> Anyway, God bless. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time.