"What's Coming Is WORSE Than A Depression" - Col Douglas Macgregor's Last WARNING

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]What Iran has proven is that they can be very effective and they don't really need a navy per se or an air force.

[00:00:06]They've got the ability with terrestrialbased and space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to see persistently everything that happens in the Gulf region and around their country. And they can target instantaneously with data that comes from satellites right down to the weapon system. And that is deciding the outcome. And the place is too big to invade. you know, you we don't have a million men standing around waiting to be shipped out to go somewhere and do anything. So, the whole the whole business is a fraud. And what he's trying to do is convince everybody it's not. None of this is going to work.

[00:00:40]And again, you can't print the diesel that moves your trucks. You can't print the fertilizer that grows your crops.

[00:00:46]You can't print the natural gas that powers your factories. So, America had better wake up. We better got find a way around this or out of it because our business strategies cannot easily account for physical scarcity of food, feed, fuel and fertilizer called by these shipping closures. You know this is a catastrophe.

[00:01:08]>> Every week this conflict with Iran finds a new direction and this week it found two of them. The straight of Hormuz has been functionally closed for over 2 months. 20% of the world's oil passes through that 34 km choke point during normal times. Right now, over 1,500 ships and roughly 23,000 sailors from 87 countries are stranded inside the Gulf, waiting for it to open. On Sunday, Trump announced Project Freedom, a US Navy operation to escort those ships out. By Tuesday night, he paused it. Not long ago, he was threatening Iran with strikes at a much higher level and intensity if a deal fell apart, while simultaneously saying great progress was being made toward a final agreement.

[00:01:51]Both things are true at the same time, and that is what makes the situation difficult to read. McGregor's argument is specifically about the military intervention in all of this. He says the escort operation was built on an assumption that the US can physically protect ships moving through the stray, and that assumption doesn't hold. Also, before we get into it, only a small percentage of my viewers are actually subscribed. If you enjoy geostrategy content, consider subscribing. It's free and you can always change your mind later. Now, let's listen to Colonel Douglas McGregor.

[00:02:21]>> You know, last week, I think I said that President Trump was deciding not to decide. This week, I think he decided on a blockade until he decides. So, that's where we are. And eventually, what what is he going to decide? He he only has two choices. One is suspend all operations. Say, "Gosh, guess we were wrong. Military power won't work. We're going to have to find a different way forward. Until then, we're disengaging so the rest of the world can get on with the business it needs, and it needs energy." Choice number two is we go back to trying to destroy the Iranian state.

[00:02:57]Which one? Where are we headed? And listening to Secretary of War Hegsth, I'm not really sure which one we're headed for. I think escalate, but I I think he's leaving it ambiguous. You know, you're everybody can come away with whatever they want at this point because the whole thing seems ambiguous and unclear to me. First of all, I was waiting for him at the end of his statement to say, "Now look, I didn't write this. This was handed to me and I was told to say it. Don't ask me any questions because it didn't make any sense. First of all, what is the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters doing?"

[00:03:33]He says they're synchronizing. Well, last time I looked in an operation like this, it would be the combined air operations center that would be handling all of this, deconlicting all of the flights, making sure that the various aircraft, manned and unmanned, don't collide, keeping an eye on the straight, every inch of it at all times, and integrating that with the Navy picture, which we can do. I'm not sure what that means. And again, why is the division headquarters from the 82nd doing any of it? It's it's very strange. And then lastly, I think we have this illusion now that we're going to have this invisible barrier provided by all the assets that that were outlined that are going to prevent the Iranians from interfering with any ships that go through. Well, good luck with that because I don't think that's going to work unless we've found a way to relate light, gravity, and magnetism and break the laws of physics and put up what's the right word? laser beams or directed energy walls or something. That's not going to work. You're not going to be able to influence that. The Iranians are not using major combat vehicles. They're using unmanned vessels and some small fast boats, but most important, they can still strike everything and we can't stop it. We cannot defend what goes through that straight. So, I the whole thing strikes me as movie magic or imaginary nonsense. It it doesn't sound real in any way, shape, or form. One wonders why those first two were allowed through. I don't know how they got through. Nobody does. I don't think the Iranians have explained it, and I don't know that the US has explained it. Who knows? We now know that nothing else is coming out. I think that's pretty obvious. I don't know how we rectify that. I think all of you know, we have to ask the question, why are we creating this illusion? Is this to enable the president to say the straight is now open. We've proven this. There's no longer any requirement for us to be engaged here and we're we're leaving. Is this his declare victory and leave moment? I don't know. I don't think anybody's going to be fooled. How many ships went through on a daily basis until the war began? Well, we know that.

[00:05:40]We're no, we're not even close to it.

[00:05:42]We're not going to get close to it. How many barrels of oil came out of the straight every day? What? 13 to 15 million barrels a day. We're we're not even close to that. And then we have the problem inside the Gulf of oil production itself. I think what everybody is learning is a very hard lesson. Dan, this remember we used to hear everybody talk about just in time logistics. I think that's going to change now. We're talking about just in case logistics where boardrooms become war rooms and everybody is going to stockpile everything from oil to rare earths, preferably refined rare earths and all all forms of liqufied natural gas and other things, uranium, we go down the list, phosphates, aluminum, so forth. I think everybody is going to going to start down this road of just in case logistics because if you don't, you have no control over the destiny of your own country because the countries all run on the same thing. It's called energy and for energy to be efficient and effective and keep your society healthy, it has to be cheap. It was cheap. We've now made it prohibitively expensive. And watching the price of oil in a given day fall back is a reflection of people on Wall Street that are out of touch with reality. They don't understand military operations and they believe whatever the president says.

[00:06:57]That's the only way to explain it. And a lot of people in Wall Street think, well, eventually the Navy, the Marines, the they'll just take the street. They don't even understand it geographically.

[00:07:06]They don't understand that the military challenge that exists. So when these things begin to sink in, you'll also have the pain here in the United States increase because our stocks are way below what is required to make this country run effectively. Look at the this is in thousands of barrels. You read up their weekly ending stocks of total gasoline. So we're down at 2026 right now to 220,000.

[00:07:32]This just before you go into the summer when people drive more than they drive through most of the year. This is not going to get any better. It's going to fall below that. It's going to take a long time to recover from this. And we know that California in particular is very, very vulnerable. They're dependent on foreign oil imports. We don't have pipelines that that run from the east coast to the west coast to ensure that we can provide gasoline inside the United States to places like California.

[00:07:57]We don't have it. The bottom line is everything is going to get worse. Prices are going to rise. Inflation is going to increase. And pretty soon we're going to have shortages in food as well as the energy. And remember, the economy runs on cheap energy and cheap credit. If energy isn't cheap, credit's not cheap because yields go up. When bond yields go up, you've got a problem. We can't afford them. That's where we're headed.

[00:08:20]I don't know what the magic number is.

[00:08:21]I've long thought that 5% on the 10-year bond yield was probably the ceiling that would collapse the whole system. We'll see. I'm surprised we're not already there, but we'll get there. And in the meantime, keep in mind, the rest of the world is ddollarizing. They're dumping dollars. China is dumping dollars. Japan now is in a is in a currency crisis.

[00:08:41]It's trying to defend the yen. Pretty soon to do that, they're going to have to sell off our treasuries. The world then is going to go in what direction?

[00:08:49]To the yuan. That's where business is going to be done. Now, we can scream and holler and protest. We can threaten and control, but that's where we're headed.

[00:08:58]>> Before we continue, here's where things actually stand as of today. On Monday, May confirmed that the Alliance Fairfax, a US flagged vessel operated by one of its subsidiaries, exited the Persian Gulf under US military escort without incident. It had been stranded since the conflict began on February 28th. That was the first ship out under Project Freedom. As the first two commercial vessels were escorted through on Monday, Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones at the ships. The US said seven or eight small Iranian military boats were destroyed in the exchange.

[00:09:31]Meanwhile, the UAE reported it was attacked with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones on Monday, resulting in three injuries. A South Korean operated vessel also caught fire in the straight on the same day. Then on Tuesday evening, Trump paused Project Freedom entirely, citing great progress being made toward a final agreement with Iran brokered by Pakistan while keeping the naval blockade on Iranian ports in place. According to CNN, a one-page framework being discussed internally would declare an end to the war and trigger a 30-day negotiation window covering nuclear issues, Iranian asset unfreezing, and the future of the strait. It reportedly includes a moratorium on uranium enrichment for more than 10 years, and a requirement that Iran ship its stockpile of highlyenriched uranium out of the country. Neither side has confirmed the specifics publicly. Also this morning, China's foreign minister Wang Yi met with Iranian foreign minister Abbas Arachi in Beijing, calling for a comprehensive ceasefire ahead of Trump's scheduled summit with Xiinping in the coming days. France's Charles de Gaulle carrier strike group also crossed the Suez Canal today, heading toward the Southern Red Sea as part of a multinational shipping security effort.

[00:10:44]The diplomatic track and the military track are both moving simultaneously.

[00:10:48]Oil markets responded to Tuesday's pause with prices retreating but remaining above $100 a barrel, while average US gas prices climbed slightly to $448 a gallon. Gas prices above $6 a gallon were reported in Los Angeles on Monday.

[00:11:05]Now, let's continue listening to McGregor.

[00:11:08]>> China is going to become a safe haven for wealth, which is something that I didn't expect to see in my lifetime.

[00:11:13]It's not just uh China's resistance to what we're trying to do to the to them and to the business partners they have around the world. You've also got the port and I I'm not sure about the pronunciation. It's on the Pakistani coast that lies on the Indian Ocean called Guandar or Guandahar. And this port was built literally at the cost of several several billion dollars by China. And this port is topof the line in terms of its modernization and its capability. That port is outside of the Persian Gulf and it's roughly 54 to 55 miles from the border with Iran. Trucks can move anything that comes into that port in Pakistan along that road straight into Iran. And that's what's happening. And at the same time, trucks can also come out of Iran, go down that particular road into that port. Have you got a Have you got it on a map somewhere?

[00:12:03]>> Yeah. Yeah, it's right there. This is it. Right. This is what you're talking about. And I'm not sure about the pronunciation, so I apologize to people who know more about this than I do. Guan Guanat or Guan? I can't quite see, but >> no, I think Gura something. Yeah, I can't get it right either, but that's it.

[00:12:20]>> But the bottom line is you see how close it is to the Iranian border. Yeah.

[00:12:25]>> And they're going to be able to do business through that port and along that road. Now the question that will come up undoubtedly is the United States Navy going to now blockade that port which is a Pakistani port or are we going to actually attack that lifeline that is being built from that port up into Iran. I would say those are very dangerous things to do because that could bring you in direct into direct military confrontation with China. But the bottom line is that China is not abandoning Iran. China is going to continue to provide Iran whatever it can. And that's not simply because Iran is important business partner in terms of the resources particularly oil and gas and so forth that it exports to China. But I think the view in Beijing and increasingly the view in Moscow is that if you don't stand up to the United States at this point and you don't back the people who are resisting them, the United States are going to turn on others and eventually the United States is going to turn on you. So, I see no end to this that is going to be profitable or advantageous for us. But we know the president and the way he thinks and I don't see him willingly disengaging from this unless he can call it quote unquote a win. Well, we're nowhere. That's the bottom line. He doesn't seem to understand that you can print money, but you can't print energy or materials. You can't print minerals.

[00:13:44]In other words, you can't conjure up these things out of nothing. We're conjuring up wealth out of nothing. we just print money. And he thinks that that's the same thing that he's dealing with right now. It won't work. It's dangerous. And and that's going to crash us at some point. The the other thing I think that we have to keep in mind is that if you're President Trump right now, you're trying to convince everybody on Wall Street as well as everybody who's willing to listen to you anymore that this is a mini war. No, this is not a big war. This is a small war. In other words, don't worry about it. We've got it under control. We'll manage it.

[00:14:17]There's nothing really that the Iranians can do anymore. this will end when we decide to end it. In the meantime, by all means, continue to trade your stocks and bonds. Don't be concerned about this. This is not a major event. Well, Dan, that's nonsense, as you and I both know. What Iran has proven is that they can be very effective, and they don't really need a navy, per se, or an air force. They've got the ability with terrestrialbased and space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to see persistently everything that happens in the Gulf region and around their country. And they can target instantaneously with data that comes from satellites right down to the weapon system and that is deciding the outcome. And the place is too big to invade. You know, we don't have a million men standing around waiting to be shipped out to go somewhere and do anything. So the whole the whole business is a fraud. And what he's trying to do is convince everybody it's not. None of this is going to work.

[00:15:14]And again, you can't print the diesel that moves your trucks. You can't print the fertilizer that grows your crops.

[00:15:20]You can't print the natural gas that powers your factories. So America had better wake up. We better got find a way around this or out of it because our business strategies cannot easily account for physical scarcity of food, feed, fuel, and fertilizer called by these shipping closures. You know, this is a catastrophe. It's a catastrophe on a global level. It hasn't hit us dramatically yet, but you and I know over the next 60 days, it's going to be hell to pay here inside the United States.

[00:15:52]>> Shut down the food stamps. What McGregor keeps coming back to is something that sits on both the military and the diplomatic sides of these. You can negotiate with one hand and escort ships with the other, but neither of those things refills the energy stock piles that have been draining since February.

[00:16:07]Even if the straight reopens today, the US has said mine clearance alone could take 6 months. The supply gap doesn't pause while the diplomacy catches up.

[00:16:17]Whether the deal being brokered through Pakistan holds is genuinely uncertain.

[00:16:21]US officials told Axios privately that things could go either way, describing the talks as a situation where neither side likes the others offers. What happens next depends on whether Tyrron accepts the terms on the table? And on that, right now, nobody really knows if they'll accept. Drop your take in the comments. Do you think a deal gets done or does this reset back to escalation?

[00:16:43]Now, let's listen to Colonel Douglas McGregor. I think it's disappointing that the president of the United States presents his views and opinions in the form of a comic strip because that's effectively what we're looking at. This is a a very superficial glance at something which is equally superficial and that is Trump's approach to this entire matter. There's no maturity.

[00:17:03]There's no balance. There's no real diplomacy. There's no serious thinking about the strategic implications for us, let alone the rest of the world. and the rest of the world right now is really very very close to walking away from us completely. So let's stop and look at these three op options. Let's start with the last one. Declare victory and walk away. Well fine, declare victory. The only people that are going to take that seriously are people probably in the White House. Now the good news is that most Americans are not interested in this. They don't support the war. So frankly from his standpoint, ending this conflict is an easy win for Donald Trump. He would be applauded for doing so. But we have the third party. It's called Israel. That's unacceptable. So scrap declaring victory and walking away. Two blockade. How effective is the blockade? Well, it's very effective right now in so far as it's going to breed famine all over the global south.

[00:17:54]It's reducing Europe to ruins. It's creating conditions all over the world conducive to panic and destruction. Why?

[00:18:03]Because there are 47 different types of petroleum products that can't get out of the Persian Gulf. He's not really hurting Iran. Iran will stay the course.

[00:18:12]There is no evidence that Iran is going to wake up tomorrow morning and say, "Please, please don't harm us anymore."

[00:18:18]Uh-uh. The exact opposite is the case.

[00:18:20]We have a increasingly irradicalized population, particularly under the age of 40, that wants no more discussion and no more negotiations with us under any circumstances. So the blockade is going to have more do more damage to us as a country and ultimately more damage to the rest of the world than it's going to harm Iran. In fact, Iran will probably come out of this looking like a superhero compared to us given where we're headed. And that leads us to the last option, which is go back, repeat what you did before with more violence, more munitions, more forces. Will that work? I doubt it very seriously, but I think that's what he considers to be probably his best option. He has he's put everything on the line. His presidency right now is on the line. His survival in office is on the line. If he took option three, I think he could survive. Option two will not keep him there. Will option one keep him in office? Well, he may think so because he may say, "I may get lucky." The problem with the first option is Chinese, the Russians, Indian, the Indians, everybody around the world that's watching this, everybody in Europe is sort of suspending disbelief that we would be this barbarous and this stupid to put everything on the line for a war against a country that threatens none of them.

[00:19:39]And so I think he'll go for option one because I don't think he gives a damn what happens around the world. I don't think he gives a damn about anything or anybody else. So I think you're going to get option one. Hope I'm wrong. Look at November. It talks it talks to you about weekly exports through the straight of Hormuz in terms of tons of fertilizer.

[00:19:58]We are effectively reversing the green revolution. We're robbing the world of access to the fertilizer it desperately needs to grow the food to support the population we have today. And if you look at that, nothing is coming out of the Gulf. And neither the Russians nor wean nor anybody else can produce enough to export and help others. In fact, there was a letter sent to the president of the United States that was signed by leaders in the agricultural arena. They were talking about farmers. Right now, bankruptcy among farmers is up 46%. And the farmers in the United States are in real danger because they too can't afford the fertilizer because the price of fertilizer has riven risen dramatically. So, we're going to suffer.

[00:20:40]We're going to have less available. We are going to have shortfalls on the shelves inside of various food marts.

[00:20:47]we're going to have a lot more people showing up at the food banks. Only the food banks aren't going to be able to help them very much because they won't have additional food. Trump doesn't seem to understand this. And from the very beginning, he always had the option of of coming forward after the failure of this first operation and say, "Look, on humanitarian grounds as the president of the United States," and he styles himself the leader of the free world, although I think that falls on deaf ears now. I am going to suspend this operation because it's in the interest of the world to stop. Well, he's not going to do that. And so, he's throwing our farmers under the bus. He's throwing the American population standard of living under the bus. He's throwing much of the world under the bus. Doesn't seem to care. Go back in and try yet again to kill everyone in the government that could possibly contribute to a negotiation. Oh, that makes great sense.

[00:21:38]If there's nobody to negotiate with you, well, then just kill everybody. This is by Mark Tissson. And as I recollect, Mark Tissson was a speech writer for President Bush, which is a frightening prospect, but I think that may explain much. But he certainly is a bloodthirsty individual, and I don't know what that stems from. That looks like blind, unreasoned hatred. We've gone from the city on the hill to a leper colony. And I think we're going to remain in that condition for some time, especially if he presses ahead and unleashes hell one more time on Iran. International sympathy is not with us. I know he's not concerned about that. He's worried about his donors who are preeminently concerned about Israel, not us. So, I I don't think it's going to make any difference what you and I say here today. But the truth is, we're being transformed into a leper colony.

[00:22:26]Nobody's going to want to do business with us under any circumstances. And we've always taken the position that everybody has to do business with us.

[00:22:33]That's not true. They can do business with alternative sources. What are those alternative sources? Well, lots of them are in Asia. That's particularly true for China and Japan and Korea and Taiwan and for Southeast Asia. And increasingly the Europeans are viewing us as certifiably insane. They haven't figured out what we're trying to do because it doesn't make any difference to them from the standpoint of whom we hate or dislike. But when you disrupt the global supply chains and you destroy the energy complex, everybody says, "Well, wait a minute. These are the people that destroyed Nordstream, too. You know, what are we doing with them? These are not all lies. These people are sick.

[00:23:09]They're dangerous. They're demented.

[00:23:11]They're deranged. I think we're losing our standing all over the world. And you know, we can always take some something of a beating just because we're a leading power, but this is this makes no sense. This borders on criminality. I think the American people in another 2 or 3 months are going to be in the streets in this country, and I think they're going to demand an accounting.

[00:23:31]And I think the people in Washington are incredibly stupid to ignore that reality because the things we are doing to others are going to redound to our disadvantage. We're going to see more trouble. We're going to see much higher prices. We're going to watch the financial markets collapse. We're going to watch uh President Trump's sacred stock market lose 50 60% of its value.

[00:23:52]At that point, the world changes. Not just us, the whole world. But we are going then have to to adapt to a very different environment here at home.

[00:24:01]We've lived in a in a state of abundance for decades. We're about to go into a state of scarcity. In other words, we're we're going to replace the abundance that we've become accustomed to that we like and take for granted. It's going to become scarcity. People are not going to be able to buy the things that they're accustomed to buying. They're not going to be able to go where they want to go.

[00:24:20]I don't think the people in Washington understand this. I think they're living in a fantasy world because they're living in the world where you can print money. Well, you can print money, but you can't print petroleum. You can't print fertilizer. You don't print nitrogen and phosphates. You don't don't print silver or gold. So, I think ultimately we're going to be in a lot of trouble, but it's going to take a little longer to hit us, another 3 or 4 months, and by then the American people will be up in arms. Anything's possible at that stage. So McGregor is saying the blockade is hurting everyone except the country it's aimed at and that Iran is not going to crack under it. That is being tested right now. And what happened earlier this week is worth paying attention to. On Monday, Trump launched what he's calling Project Freedom, a military escort operation to push commercial shipping back through the straight. Sentcom said two American flag vessels made it through under protection from destroyers, helicopters, and fighter jets. During the transit, US forces sank six Iranian small boats and shot down multiple cruise missiles fired at American warships. That sounds like progress, but consider the scale of what progress means here. Before the war, 120 vessels were transiting the straight every single day. Two made it through on day one of Project Freedom. Retired Lieutenant General Karen Gibson told CNN that Iran only needs to keep presenting a perception of risk to hold commercial traffic back and that commercial confidence is the real center of gravity. Iran doesn't need to sink a warship. It just needs shipping insurers to keep saying no. And that's exactly what they're doing. While the US was running its first convoy through, Iran was making its own statement. The UAE came under Iranian fire for the first time since the ceasefire began in early April. Iran launched 15 missiles and four drones at the Emirates, one of which struck an oil facility in Fujira, sparking a fire and wounding three Indian nationals. Four missile alerts went out to UAE residents and commercial flights bound for Dubai turned around midair. Now, the Fagyra detail is important. The UAE built a pipeline running directly to Fyra specifically to bypass the straight of Hormuz and keep its oil flowing to markets. That bypass route is what Iran hit. And right before the strikes, the IRGC published a new map extending its Hormuz control zone to include Fujyra, well outside the straight itself. Iran is telling the world there is no workaround it won't reach. Senior US officials told Fox News on Monday that they are now closer to resuming full combat operations than they were 24 hours prior with the military described as rearmed and retoled. No orders have been given, but they stand ready. Defense Secretary Hegsth told reporters Tuesday that the ceasefire is not over and that Trump himself will determine what constitutes a violation. For anyone watching at home, the average gallon of gasoline in the US hit $4.30 last week, up from under $3 before the war began. Countries across Europe and Asia have already started implementing austerity measures to absorb the energy shock. That is the blockade landing on ordinary people while Iran per McGregor holds its position and watches everyone else pay the price. Back to him now because he has something specific to say about the voices pushing Trump toward military escalation and why their read on Iran is the most dangerous thing in this entire situation. Most of the analysts that are familiar with the oil markets and they understand what it takes to drill for oil and extract it are saying that if we stopped everything right now, we might recover in 18 months, maybe 2 years.

[00:28:02]Because remember, we've already got examples in the Gulf of drilling rigs that are no longer drilling because they have nowhere to put the the excess oil supply. They're filling up the tanks.

[00:28:12]Those tanks are sitting there, but if you can't drill, you can't pull it out, the water the the pressure underground drops. water infiltrates, it may take a lot of money and a lot of time to refit and rework the oil infrastructure and make it productive. Remember, the corporate heads of the oil sector met with President Trump about Venezuela, and they tried to explain to him how much money it would take and how long it would take to recover Venezuela from the state of decay that its oil infrastructure finds itself. We're now going to face that. Now, if we go back in now and do exactly what you've said, we'll probably attack many of the same targets. We'll no doubt find new ones. I also think we're going to find a much more resilient resilient, robust, and capable Iran than we faced the first and second time. But then we're going to do so much damage. Most of the analysts and economists that I talk to are telling me, Doug, it may be 5 to 10 years before we recover. Now, that's a long time for the energy complex to get back on its feet. I would go a step further and I would point out that if the tankers when they're finally allowed to leave the Persian Gulf, if we stop them in the street of Malaa or we interrupt their journey to deliver their products to China, Korea, Japan, and so forth, we could very easily find ourselves at war with China. And I don't think people are taking that seriously right now. The Chinese are much better prepared for that than we are. They have built a lot of nuclear power plants. They've built a lot of coal fired plants. They have stockpiled a lot of energy. They're ready if if they have to to fight us.

[00:29:46]They have built an enormous fleet. I don't think it's as good as ours by any stretch of the imagination, but there's a lot of it. And they have the capability to do what Iran has been doing to us. And I would say that capability would be on steroids. That's the ability to reach out and essentially destroy an entire surface fleet from a distance. Not just the surface fleet, but any islands where we put anything.

[00:30:08]So, I think we're courting disaster at this stage. And then the real question is if if China becomes involved, what will the Russians do? I suspect that they'll take the gloves off. They'll finish off things in Ukraine and they'll turn with the Chinese against us. And I don't think they'll be the only ones. I don't think the Indians are going to sit there and do nothing because India faces famine. India faces huge shortages. For for these governments in Asia to do nothing and let us continue indefinitely is the pathway to suicide for them. Not only will their governments be replaced, but their population is going to suffer.

[00:30:40]So, I think it's worse than what you've said. It's not just Iran. It suddenly involves everyone else. And I think we got to go back to the region. And who else could become involved at this stage? Who else is on the line for all of this? Egypt, the largest Arab state in the region, and Turkey. And Turkey, of course, is probably the most powerful single military state in NATO. And there's nothing that we've seen hurled at us from Iran that the Turks don't also have. And no doubt in my mind the Russians would certainly support and stand by the Turks and Egypt. So you know this this is running out of control and people like Tissson and others who are urging mass murder on the basis of arrogance and ignorance you know they should be shouted down because we don't need that. We don't want that and that could be the end of us. You could see the complete collapse of American national power. We're already on the edge of serious trouble but that would be the end of us. What's really worse about all of this is that these people are out of touch with what is happening inside Iran. You know, this this is not sinking in. If you were to remove all of the people today that hold positions, responsible positions in the Iranian government, the people that you would get are much younger and are fully radicalized. You know, imagine if you had 20, 30 million people under the age of 40, all of whom want blood, who have decided that we can't be trusted, we don't want to negotiate, and are willing to fight to the bitter end and do whatever is required to be victorious.

[00:32:07]That's a terrible situation to be in.

[00:32:09]It's the last thing you want. This is back to this absurd idea of unconditional surrender. And that's effectively what Keane and Lindsey Graham and Tissson and the rest of these neocons all of whom are closely aligned to and in support of Mr. Netanyahu. They want unconditional surrender just as Israel wants the total destruction of Iran. None of those things are in the interest of the American people. That's the problem. We we're not interested in that. We don't want that. And then to compare this to the outbreak of World War II and the way people in the United States felt after the Japanese attacked us without warning on a Sunday morning in a time when Americans had very different sets of values from the ones we're accustomed to today is absurd. And this other thing about they don't share our values and concerns. They don't care about their population. I I couldn't disagree more. I think they care very much about the population. My concern is that if you're successful, you kill everybody that you are currently dealing with. The people that will step into their shoes, they will fight to the end.

[00:33:09]They will go down as martyrs before they ever go down on their knees to Israel, let alone us.

[00:33:15]>> McGregor's main argument is that the advisers around Trump, Keane, and Graham, the neocon commentator class, are working from a version of Iran that no longer exists. They believe economic pressure eventually breaks regimes.

[00:33:28]McGregor believes every strike and every sanction round has done the opposite, hardening an entire generation of Iranians into something that will not negotiate on Washington's terms and will not surrender. The question is not whether Washington eventually steps back. How much damage accumulates before that happens? Drop your take in the comments. Do you think Project Freedom changes anything or does it just hand Iran a new way to escalate?