Dr.Warwick Powell | Worst Than Vietnam: Trump's Iran Disaster

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]what I would call hubris.

[00:00:02]Or let's say imperialistic hubris to coin a phrase.

[00:00:06]That basically the moment that the US gets involved in the conflict that there are all sorts of rational actors wouldn't have gotten involved. Rational actors will try to get out of it.

[00:00:19]But in this case any deal that Trump makes can't make Trump look bad. Otherwise, Trump is not going to take the deal. It's that, right? Where it's like you've involved yourself into a war.

[00:00:32]Not only did you not accomplish your war aims, but now Iran has is holding the Strait of Hormuz. You can't do anything about the fact that they're holding the Strait of Hormuz. Meaning any way of extricating yourself is doing so with them holding the Strait of Hormuz, which is a clear indication that you lost.

[00:00:48]And can a US president accept that? And I guess my thing is the answer is no, which is the reason why we're still in Ukraine on some level because there's no deal that the Russians can give that Trump could accept because it would make Trump look like he lost the war. And we're in a pretty similar situation here. Or do you see it that way? I mean Yeah.

[00:01:04]>> The Pentagon would look >> thing here. This this this is this is precisely the the decent interval problem, which is how do I kick defeat the can of defeat down the road so that it doesn't materialize on my watch. Yeah. And um >> incredible No, no, please. Well, I was just going to say I I think and I wrote a piece on my Substack um late last year, I think it was, which actually talked about the decent interval dilemma and that is now playing out in the Ukraine war as well because had Trump um actually withdrawn the United States from that war within the first say three or four weeks of his inauguration It would have been a noise.

[00:01:45]>> it was possible for him to lay the blame of um the debacle at the feet of his predecessor. But the minute he essentially progressively bought into the war, uh it became increasingly difficult for him to portray the war as something that belonged to someone else.

[00:02:04]And we know that he always said, "This war wouldn't have happened if I was president.

[00:02:09]This is Joe Biden's war, not my war, etc. etc." But the longer it wore on, the harder that proposition came to to be persuasive. And so, we we reached a point where Donald Trump's inability to actually make the the hard call and get out and get out quickly and cleanly, surgically, has left him in a in again the same position where trying to trying to blame others, trying to shift home responsibility to others.

[00:02:39]And and so, it perpetuates and the hole keeps getting dug. And you know, when you're in a hole and you keep digging, you actually don't get yourself out of it. And I fear that the Iran situation could unfold in the same way.

[00:02:56]And and the biggest risk here um from a human point of view is obviously the escalation of conflict again, and then eventually a long protracted ground war that will cause the deaths of lots of people on both sides.

[00:03:18]It will also, incidentally, lead to, I think, the destruction fundamentally, the destruction of the hydrocarbon economies of the Persian Gulf.

[00:03:30]And that's because Iran will destroy everything that its missiles can reach because that is ultimately the price it will cause the United States, its allies in the region, um and the world indirectly via the United States.

[00:03:51]That's the price it will cause them to pay for what it sees as um unwarranted uh unprovoked aggression against Iran.

[00:04:03]>> [snorts] >> And you know as well, they said that that's exactly what they were going to do. Yeah. It's not like they lied, right? They said, "Leave us to our devices. We have the capacity to take Strait of Hormuz, and we have the capacity to destroy the Gulf states and state of Israel if you press us."

[00:04:17]Meaning, if we have back against the wall. We don't even know We have the ability to destroy the world economy. And that's the part I want to get to. Yeah. So, the Cradle is reporting that it would take, depending on, 6 months to remove I guess the mines or whatever in the Strait of Hormuz.

[00:04:34]Um and I don't know if that's 6 months under fire.

[00:04:38]Like if the number increases um if they're going to get attacked and whatnot.

[00:04:42]>> [snorts] >> And so, it seems that there's this is a payoff.

[00:04:47]How much can Iran take? How much can the US take in this kind context of the global economy? What are we to expect from this if this goes on for 3 months, 4 months, 5 months? I mean, there's photos and videos of Iran seizing ships.

[00:05:01]And of course, the US has its blockade where it's trying to go after um Iranian flagships. What are we to expect in economic costs?

[00:05:09]Well, let's start with this question of resolve and pain, more just broadly speaking.

[00:05:15]Iran, as I mentioned, has everything to gain and nothing to lose. It's been subject to sanctions now for 40 years or more.

[00:05:22]And um and in that regard, it is quite accustomed to having been alienated and ostracized from uh much of the mainstream global economy.

[00:05:35]So, this is a country that has already experienced a lot of hardship. The fact that it's experienced hardship means it's a toughened population. The result of the bombings, of course, has increased resolve.

[00:05:50]Right? So, I can't see a population that is going to suddenly go weak at the knees.

[00:05:57]And there are other places in the world which tell us how resolve of people under attack can actually play out. You know, Cuba is a classic case in point. You know, it's an island of 9 million people, you know, within 100 miles or so of the United States coast. And yet, the people there have, you know, for a long time endured hardship, but refused to buckle politically.

[00:06:23]So, that tells us something about how tough uh people can be if they believe in what it is that they are fighting for.

[00:06:33]We've seen it in other contexts.

[00:06:36]Vietnam War. The Chinese in the 1930s and 1940s against the aggression of the Japanese and then ultimately uh into the wider um Second World War in the Pacific. Right?

[00:06:51]So, you know, there is an ability of people to show deep resolve. The Russians did the same during the Second World War and many of the other wars they've been involved in.

[00:07:00]So, in terms of a capacity of a people to um suck it up, uh don't underestimate the capacity of Iran.

[00:07:10]That's the first thing. The second thing is that when the the kind of pain we're talking about is asymmetric, because in some ways it's not entirely existential for the United States and for the people of the United States, uh then if there are bodies in body bags as a result of uh infantry conflict, then there's every likelihood that, like there has been in the past, that the American people will start to become even more agitated about the folly of this war and build public pressure around it like they did with Vietnam and other conflicts.

[00:07:50]Now, let's go to the economic stuff, right? Yeah. Um The first thing that we often hear is that the United States doesn't use the Strait of Hormuz and it doesn't affect the United States.

[00:08:07]That's not strictly true.

[00:08:10]We already know that it's not strictly true because if it was strictly true, it's hard to imagine this [snorts] much commitment to the war, right? And to trying to pressure the Iranians to open the Strait of Hormuz.

[00:08:24]You know, when President Trump talks about doing this on behalf of others, I think it's fair to say that that's largely disingenuous.

[00:08:32]The reason why the United States um has a direct economic interest in the Strait of Hormuz and the oil from the Gulf is that in fact many of its refineries are calibrated to process and refine crude oil from the Gulf states.

[00:08:51]Without which, the United States capacity to export refined products would actually be adversely affected.

[00:08:59]The United States is a net importer of crude, right? Let's not forget that.

[00:09:04]And the reason is is that much of its processing capacity, which is built many years ago, was actually built to handle, you know, a lot of the crude from other parts of the world, right? So, number one point.

[00:09:18]Number two point, in part because of all of this, the United States market for um refined petroleum products, energy, and other things is affected by changes in global prices.

[00:09:33]If it wasn't, there is no way that the United States would have gone to such efforts to try to keep a lid on uh futures prices of oil, right? Um through market manipulation. And of course, there's been clearly um what well, there's sufficient uh evidence to suggest that there is uh some element of insider trading taking place. Or at least there's 2.6 billion dollars of incredibly well-placed and timed guesses um um betting on uh falls in prices on a Friday afternoon, for example. Uh lo and behold, within 15 minutes of President Trump making announcements that dampen market concerns. So, uh the United States actually does have a direct economic interest in the Strait of Hormuz and the crude.

[00:10:29]The second thing as a result of all of this is that of course, the rest of the world does, too.

[00:10:36]And the regions of the world that are most affected uh Asia, broadly speaking, uh including Australia and Europe.

[00:10:48]Europe is a significant importer of uh refined petroleum products and gas, of course, because let's not forget forget that Qatar is a large producer of gas, about 8% of global supply, and that's also out of the market now. And a good proportion of that gas was actually contracted to Europe. And uh and that happened because the Europeans decided that they wouldn't take Russian gas anymore, and um and so, Qatari gas became an important part of their their gas supply chain.

[00:11:27]Mhm. So, Europe and Asia are actually incredibly exposed.

[00:11:32]Asian countries are exposed in a patchwork kind of way. Some countries more than others. Countries with greater reserves have a capacity to last longer. Countries that have lesser reserves, obviously, uh under the the pump, so to speak.

[00:11:47]Countries whose economic structures, from an energy point of view, uh less reliant upon uh uh refined petroleum energy will also be relatively