The Iran War: Interceptors and a Costly Mistake

A Shahed Saeqeh-2 variant drone | Wikimedia Comons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahed_drones#/media/File:Saegheh_(4).jpg

Attacks have intensified, with Iranian drone and missile strikes heading towards the Arab Gulf states. Many of these states rely on costly U.S. interceptors, and with stockpiles dwindling, energy infrastructure could become exposed. Marco Rubio told Congress that the conflict could intensify over the next 5 weeks, so stay tuned.

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Transcript

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Colorado at home. I’m about to head to the airport just a little early anyway, overnight, day four of the war, we’ve had significantly more attacks. A lot of drones, a lot of drones, and quite a few missiles as well. The pattern that has erupted now, 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 issues targeting, the Iranians can’t really go after U.S. 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. But for the Arab side of the Persian Gulf, the story is different. So, what we’ve got going on is instead of going after the Israelis or the Americans, the Iranians are going after the Bahrainis and the Kuwaitis and the Emiratis and the Saudis. 

And all of these countries have purchased us Patriot missile systems and even some fads. But those interceptors are expensive. And the hundreds of thousands of dollars and the showerheads that are being thrown against them are less than 50,000. So in order to reliably shoot down a projectile, you often have to shoot more than one, interceptor. 

And best guess, and it is a guess, is that the beginning of the conflict, the collective Arab side of the Gulf probably had over 2000 interceptors, but they’ve already intercepted over 1000 things coming at them. So we’re already getting to a point where the, 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. Only the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia even have an air force. It’s worthy of the name. And the 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. 

What this means is very soon, probably within a week, the Gulf eyes are going to have to decide to just not shoot down the heads at all and focus on the ballistic missiles that can cause more damage and have more 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 in the direct crosshairs, perhaps as much as 20, based on how things are going at the time. And in the meantime, Strait of Hormuz is closed, insurance companies and sold all insurance. So nobody’s coming or going. So we may be getting that energy crisis sooner than we thought. 

The easy way around this of course, is develop cheaper interceptors. And there’s only one country in the world it 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, has a big price, the Brits who still have relations with Ukrainians that are good in the military sphere, have repositioned several Ukrainian assets, including Ukrainian staff, into the Gulf to help shoot down some of these projectiles, but give you an idea of how little, the United States has invested in this technology. 

Fifth fleet headquarters in Bahrain, got hit in the second day of the war on the 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, the American decision to not engage the Ukrainians, where they have been defending themselves against Russian launched Iranian showerhead drones now for three years. This is where the knowledge base sits in the world to defeat this technology, 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 head on, and all it has is expensive interceptors that exist in a limited number, which makes it very, very strange that the Shahed facilities that are building the drones in Iran still haven’t been targeted. But more on that as we move forward with the war. 

Okay, finishing this one up from the airport lounge in Denver. The other big news is that yesterday morning, the secretary of State Rubio, testified to Congress to comply with the War Powers resolution, notifying Congress of what was going on. biggest thing that has come out of that is that, he said that the United States actually went significantly heavier attacks in the days and weeks to come, and that he expected the entire conflict to last 4 to 5 weeks. 

Now, this is not vacation Congress. This is not battle plans. So there is absolutely no reason to expect the Trump administration and the Defense Department to follow that to the letter by any stretch of the imagination, which is kind of interesting. The story that’s being told to Congress. We’ve got a number of senators and reps on both sides of the aisle who are pretty angry at the idea that this conflict has happened at all, and we’re expecting a bipartisan war. 

Powers Act resolution which aims to restrict, the American military’s ability to prosecute the operation moving forward. 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, jarring happen in the next 48 hours. All right, that’s it for today. 

Bye.

The U.S. Inches Towards Iran Conflict

Flags of the United States and Iran blending. Licensed by Envato Elements

U.S. strikes against Iran appear imminent, with two aircraft carriers being positioned in the Persian Gulf. Trump has presented Iran with negotiation terms that would effectively end Iran’s status as a regional power, so it’s no surprise that negotiations have stalled.

The terms laid out by Trump would end Iranian nuclear enrichment, force them to give up long-range missile capabilities, and stop supporting regional paramilitary groups. Spoiler alert: that’s Iran’s entire strategy and security model. Any conflict would likely start in the air, then move to targeting strategic assets like Kharg Island. Once that happens, Iran would be crippled.

Outside intervention would be unlikely, and removing Iranian oil from global markets wouldn’t be the end of the world. The main concern would be destabilizing the region and risking the formation of new terror groups, although things like that take time.

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Transcript

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Colorado. It’s the 23rd of February, and we’re going to talk about Iran, because what the United States has been moving into the region in terms of military hardware gives us a good idea of the, type of strike that the Trump administration is considering. The headlines are that one third of all currently deployed U.S. naval assets are in the region, which is really a bad way to look at it, because the Middle East, it’s in the middle. 

It’s between things. So it’s really not strange to have a lot of stuff there because it’s coming and going. So let’s talk about more specifics. The USS Abraham Lincoln, which is one of the Nimitz super carriers, is off the coast of Oman. And that’s a country on the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, right at the mouth of the Gulf. 

So if the United States wanted that carrier in the Gulf would take a day or two wherever it needs to go. Second, the USS Ford, which is the newest of our super carriers, by far the largest, most powerful military platform humanity has ever created is currently in the Eastern Mediterranean. It was sighted this morning off the coast of Crete. 

Crete is an island that’s in the southeastern part of the Greek territory. So it could be going through Suez in a day or two if it wanted to. In addition, there’s at least 60 aircraft in Jordan. If there was going to be a strike, we’re now basically looking at the capacity of hitting hundreds of targets in a very short period of time and suggesting an air war with a duration of a month or less, probably closer to a week or two. 

If you want to do anything more, you’re gonna need a lot more supply ships in the area, for replenishing bombs and missiles and whatnot. But it does look like the Trump administration is preparing for a scenario where the Iranians are utterly incapable of striking back at US forces, so they decide to attack Israel. Air go, all of jet aircraft that are in Jordan. 

There’s a handful of F-35, so you can see them from satellite imagery, and the rest are basically there to intercept drones as they’re going through. This is a significantly larger deployment into Jordan than what they had, during the last assault last year when they attacked the nuclear program end Iran with mixed results. This is intended to drop a lot more ordnance on a lot more places. 

And considering that even if all they do is go after the nuclear program, where there may be 50 sites, they’re going to have a lot more, subsidiary strikes in the areas to take out command and control and air defense in the rest. The question, of course, is whether the Iranians can do much about this. And the answer is no. 

Not only did American and Israeli strikes over the last year really gut the air defense network over Iran. No one has been able to step in and replace the equipment. Your options are Russia or China. The Chinese stuff, to be perfectly blunt, is really shitty. And the Iranians are really not interested in getting it unless it’s the only thing that’s on offer. 

They’d rather have offensive weapons to serve as retaliation than defensive weapons that really aren’t going to do anything. As for the Russians, the Russians are locked down in the Ukraine war and can’t make enough jets to replenish their own supplies. So while there have been a number of contracts signed to get things like the su 35, which is a fighter bomber jet, to Iran, the Russians just don’t have any to give. 

So the only thing that the Russians have been able to provide is some relatively low tech, anti aircraft systems called verbals, which are MANPADs, shoulder launch kind of things. You can use those to take out helicopters, maybe some very low flying jets, but not the sort of strikes that the United States is going to be making. 

They’re more about making a statement of solidarity than anything else, because any of the equipment that the Russians could provide is already in use. And as the Israelis and more recently the Ukrainians have proven, even the top notch Russian stuff like the S-400 really isn’t as hot as the Russians have tried to make it sound these last 30 years. 

And if they can’t stand against Ukrainian MiGs, they’re certainly not going to stand against American F-35s. So as to the goal here, remember that the Americans are demanding that the Iranians shut down their missile program, their nuclear program, and shut down all funding to paramilitaries throughout the region, which is basically the equivalent of them demanding that the United States shut down the Marine Corps, the Army, their entire air force, and decommission the Navy. 

So from the Iranian point of view, if they do this, they’re done as a strategic power. And so what we will probably see is the two of them heading to a collision. And if Trump gives the order, we will have a gutting of a lot of the industrial base in Iran. And it basically just becomes a sea. The state kind of like North Korea, but with not as many sharp, pointy sticks to point at everybody else. 

This would destroy their economic capacity to wage meaningful war, because right now, oil income is 90% of their earnings, in 90% of that oil income comes from one spot. And the idea that this administration in this moment is not going to take advantage of that, is pretty slim. 

I do want to point out one really weird thing about this, though. Iran doesn’t export a lot of crude anymore. Between sanctions and more importantly, their own idiotic approach to foreign investment that basically penalizes anyone who’s interested in investing in the country. Iran’s oil sector has been in a nosedive for the last several years after degrading for a generation. 

So total exports out of Iran are really only about a million barrels a day. And if the export infrastructure is just, disrupted, you know, it’s not going to come back anytime soon. The market can five that right now. And in a post Iran scenario, what’s going to happen is more or less what’s been happening in a pre Iran scenario. 

And that Oman and Kuwait and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates and especially Saudi Arabia will be able to send their crude not to the United States for net exporters, but to the East Asian rim where the vast majority of it goes for China. So, ironically, we’re in a situation here where the strategic. 

What’s the word I’m looking for overhang of the United States not liking Iran in a run that like in the United States, that goes back to 1979, it’s kind of outdated. And an economic strategy point of view. No longer is Middle Eastern crude supporting the American ally network. It’s supporting China. And so we’re now in this weird situation where strategic thinking in the United States hasn’t caught up yet. 

And we’re considering going to war with a country that has no impact on our ability to fight whatever’s next. Whether you think that’s worth it or not, of course, do your own strategic math. But the old argument that we need to keep oil flowing from the Persian Gulf to support the allies against the Soviet Union, that became outdated more than ten years ago, and now it’s it’s kind of funny that it’s still driving decision making really anywhere. 

And I don’t mean that as a pure critique of the Trump administration. That’s a critique of Tehran as well. They just haven’t moved on either.

“Death to the Dictator” Protests in Iran

A placard calling for regime change in Iran

Happy New Year from the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics! Thank you for your continued support as we head into 2026!

“Death to the dictator” chants have broken out during the protests in Iran, indicative of the broader economic and political strain throughout the country.

Oil revenues that used to fund domestic stability and prop up Iran’s regional influence have collapsed. Leaving the clerical regime weak. But does that mean a revolution is imminent? Well, Persian history says no. There have only been six major regime changes over 2,500 years. Although two of those changes have happened in the last century, indicating the current system is struggling to adapt to the industrial era. But a powerful state and a large military help control its population via repression and slow cultural integration.

Will the Drought in Iran Cause Political Change?

Cracked ground with a small green plant

The drought in Iran is worsening, but this isn’t going to spur radical and immediate political change. Let’s unpack it.

Tehran has over 10 million people that rely upon both surface water and aquifers, but a decade of drought has put strain on both water sources. The current draw rates are unsustainable, but that doesn’t mean it will reach a crisis point. Iran has already reduced water pressure across much of the capital to stretch supplies. Places like South Africa show that even if a tipping point approaches, rapid changes can help mitigate some of the fallout.

So, unless the taps run dry, I don’t expect this to cause political instability in Iran.

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Transcript

Hey all. Peter Zeihan here coming from Colorado. And today we’re talking about the drought in Iran. We had a question come in from our Patreon group about whether or not this could cause a degree of political change in Iran. The short answer is probably not. Well, quick back story. Iran, like most countries in the Middle East between 1940 and 1985, had a bit of a population boom. 

And so that population cohort is now in their 40s and have more money to spend. So things like water are something that they have a lot of stretch in their budgets to pay for should they need to. Second, after the Islamic Revolution, a lot of subsidies were thrown out by the new government, which is the current government, the Islamic government, and they tend to be concentrated in the capital. 

So you had a lot of people moved to the capital. So population growth, concentration in the capital is about 10 to 11 million people there now. Based on who’s numbers you’re using, somewhere between one third and one half of the water that Tehran uses comes from surface water, and the rest is pumped from aquifers. And they’ve been in a degree of drought now for ten years. 

So the surface water is going away, the aquifers are not being recharged, and the draw rate has reached a point that it’s definitely not sustainable. But keep in mind that we have some version of that problem in the United States, especially in the Mountain West, and have for decades. And we’re still not to the point that it’s really changed behavior because it hasn’t reached a critical point yet. 

If we are going to reach a critical point in Iran, there’s no reason to think it’s going to be imminent. The situation is bad, it’s getting worse. It’s a one way trip. But, saying that it’s going to happen next Tuesday or next month or whatever is not something we can do, and not just because Iranian data is, oh, let’s just call it substandard. 

And that’s before you consider things like corruption, you usually don’t see any sort of political shift in a system until the taps actually run dry. And at the moment, we have no reason to expect that to be imminent. In addition, South Africa is probably a really good comparison.  

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to be in Cape Town, just a few weeks before what they called Zero Day, when they expected the taps to run dry completely, and what the South Africans discovered is that when you have a system that is subsidized, when you have a system that is corrupt, and when you have a system that is drying out, you can change people’s behavior pretty quick. And so in the case of South Africa, you had some farming techniques that were abandoned in favor of things that were more water saving. And popular actions happened with people using the less water. We’ll probably see the same thing happening in Tehran as well. 

There’s no reason to think this is an immediate crunch. If it does turn into a bigger problem, however, the issue will be on conservation. They’re not going to do anything dramatic like move the capital, Tehran is where it is for a reason. If you move to the north, to the Caspian, you’re kind of like in the Iranian equivalent of eastern Kentucky. 

So let’s just say there’s a little bit of a cultural thing there. Go to the northwest. You’re in a near separatist area where the Azerbaijanis are the majority, and if you move south or west, you’re not either moving into Arab territory. Deeper mountains, drier mountains, flat out desert to close to the Persian Gulf. And so being in a place that could be invaded or some combination of all those Tehran is where it is for a reason. 

And it is easier and simpler to simply conserve water than to consider any sort of really dramatic shift. So at the moment, this is the sort of thing you look at every few weeks just to see if the taps are still running. And unless and until we get to the point that the taps stop. This is probably not something to worry about. 

And the Iranians are already taking preliminary measures to rein in demand. They’ve already cut pressure to most people in the capital, something like 80% of the total, cut the water pressure by over half. So they’re moving in the right direction in order to buy themselves more time. And the worst case scenario.

The Live Q&A Is Tomorrow + China’s Stance on Iran

The flags of China and Iran
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Iran was once a breeding ground of strategic importance. Well, they at least had the right stuff in the right place…or there was enough chaos to convince people to watch them. But times are changing, and the Chinese are no longer interested in Iran.

Iran has had no shortage of setbacks in recent times: battles with Israel, US hitting nuclear sites, and a diminishing influence over Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraq. And the amount of oil coming out of Iran pales in comparison to that of Saudi Arabia (and others). The Iranians are also losing their “control” over the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran is losing everything that has defined the country for decades, and the Chinese are taking notice.

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Transcript

Hey, all. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from Colorado. And today we’re gonna talk about how the Chinese view the Persian Gulf, specifically Iran. 

In the last month, the Israelis have launched an air war that’s basically destroyed Iran’s capacity for air defense. And the United States then went in and dropped a few bunker busting bombs on their nuclear program. 

Too soon to know if that actually worked. But, you know, the point is, Iran is not having a great time of it. They’ve lost control of Hezbollah functionally in Lebanon, the Houthis aren’t doing the best. They’ve lost control of Iraq. It’s been a really bad few years for them, and it’s the type of thing that’s going to take decades to kind of fix. 

So a lot of folks have assumed that for the last 20 years that the Chinese have considered Iran a strategic pull of any of their multipolar policy. And that’s that’s just not true. It’s not that the Chinese don’t see things that they can cooperate with Iranians on. Far from it. But Iran’s just not that important. A couple things to keep in mind at their peak. 

Back in the 1970s, before the Shah fell, before the clerics took over and it became the Islamic Republic of Iran, that has been hostile to really everyone. Iran was a major oil producer, about 4 million barrels per day, of which about 3 million barrels per day would be exported. But at their height, three more 3 million barrels per day exported. 

They were only exporting half of what Saudi Arabia exported at their absolute lowest. Saudi traditionally, produces something like 9 to 12 million barrels per day, with like 80 to 90% of that being exported. Iran has a much larger population, much more domestic demand, and can’t produce nearly as much. So if you are going to care about the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia is far more important than Iran, and Kuwait and the UAE together are more important than Iran. 

And the Chinese know they can do math. So that’s problem one with a theory that Iran’s really important. Number two, reason that Iran would be important is because it shares a long border with Iraq. And if you care about Iraq for whatever reason, then the Iranians can cause no end of problems there. Well, under the Biden administration, we withdrew from Iraq completely. 

And all of a sudden the strategic interest just isn’t there. So Iran can no longer use Iraq as a launching point into other parts of the Persian Gulf unless it wants to invade it first. And that would be, you know, noticed, the third issue was the Strait of Hormuz. The idea is that Iran will use jets and missiles and speedboats to basically block the Strait of Hormuz and prevent oil from getting in and out. 

Two problems here. Number one, the U.S. doesn’t care for the United States purposes because we are now a significant net exporter of crude, and we just don’t take a lot of crude from the Persian Gulf at all. Our interest in the Persian Gulf has always been to keep oil flowing to the Bretton Woods allies, so that they would be on our side versus the Soviets. 

But the Soviet Union is long gone. And now the long largest consumer of Persian Gulf crude is China. So the idea that the United States will get involved in a war with Iran to protect oil flows to China, that’s some very bad strategic math. And the Iranians know that and the Chinese know that. So what’s left? Well, shit. 

That’s everything. So bottom line is that Iran is not nearly as important to the Chinese or the Americans as it used to be. Strategically. It’s only falling off the map, especially now that doesn’t have production ability. And economically, ever since the American shale revolution really kicked up around 2012, that’s when we got into oil shale in a big way, with the United States really doesn’t care economically. 

And that’s before you consider the recent changes in the administration, with the Trump administration being broadly hostile to all of the old allies, whether it’s France and Germany or Korea and Japan, countries that use Persian Gulf crude. So we need to start thinking about this in a different way. The country that is likely to close the Persian Gulf isn’t Iran anymore. 

It’s probably Saudi Arabia and maybe even the United States, because those are the countries that would have strategic alternatives. Saudi Arabia can ship a huge amount of crude out of its western coast, and just avoid Iran and the Gulf completely. And if you shut down the Persian Gulf, the countries that suffer, the one that really goes down the most is China. 

And so from the Chinese point of view, Iran is no longer a potential strategic asset. It’s a vulnerability. And it’s sooner or later the Americans are going to realize that.

The US Strikes Iran’s Nuclear Facilities

United States Air Force posted rare photos of a GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster bomb being transported at Whiteman Air Force Base. Photo by wikimedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_strikes_on_Iranian_nuclear_sites#/media/File:Deleted_GBU-57_MOP_photo_(2).jpg

Over the weekend, the US launched a major airstrike on Iran, targeting critical nuclear sites. We don’t know the extent of the damage as of yet.

While the US strike will cause setbacks in Iran’s nuclear program, it didn’t destroy everything. So, we’ll have to wait and see if Iran rebuilds or escalates through other avenues.

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Transcript

Hey, all. Peter Zeihan here comes to you from Colorado. This video is a little late getting to you, because I was hoping we were to get some more information on what happened when the United States dropped some bunker buster bombs on Iran over the weekend, but it does not seem like anything has clarified. So I’ll give you an idea of what’s happened and now what we’re waiting for. 

So, number one, United States dropped a couple dozen major bombs on the Iranian nuclear facilities, specifically a place called Fordo, which is basically under a mountain, Natanz, which is where they do a lot of their centrifuge work to enrich uranium. Some of which of the facilities are heavily reinforced and underground and is from, which is a facility where they do most of the machining and the physical construction. 

The first two sites got hit with by bunker busters, most notably Fordo, where as it’s from was primarily hit by Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from submarines in the Persian Gulf. We do not have damage assessments from any of these places, which is part of the reason that I was kind of waiting. And we’re probably not going to get anytime soon. 

Donald Trump has said, of course, at every facility, the United States has been blown up and to smithereens, and there’s no danger whatsoever. The Joint Chiefs are like, no, we really don’t know. And until somebody does an inspection, there’s no way to know. The truth, obviously, is closer to the, the general position than Trump’s. But what’s new there? 

Iran doesn’t have a conventional military. They can’t reach out and touch someone with tanks and planes in the way that you might expect a country of 80 million people to do, their military is designed to occupy their own populations. 

It’s a civil patrol force. They have normally reached out to touch people through sectarian groups that get hopped up on weapons and drugs and basically send out to cause carnage, groups like Hezbollah, for example. But groups like Hezbollah have basically been neutered. The Gazans are in no shape to do anything. And even if they were, you know, Americans are no, we’re close to them. 

And the U.S. military footprint in the region is down to less than a quarter of what it was at its peak and continues to trend down. So the the more normal military option is really off the table and they’re more normal paramilitary operation is off the table. And that just leaves things like terror attacks, for example, dirty bombs, which might work, but they take time to put together and time to ship in into place and they can be intercepted. 

And so it could be a big splash, but then it would be an attack on, say, the United States, which United States would definitely respond with something more than some bunker busters. Okay. What do we know? Or what are we waiting for? The bunker busters, the GBU 57. I think that’s the acronym. Anyway, this is the first time the United States has ever used them against an actual target as opposed to testing. 

And we dropped 20 for the suckers. These are the 30,000 pound bombs. If anything can blow up a place like Fordo, it’s probably these guys. But again, it’s the first time we’ve ever used them. We don’t know. So in many ways, this is a test case for the United States, as well as a question for Iranian actions. 

And what everyone oh my God, what everyone wants to talk about is whether this is going to make it more likely be a deal or less likely. Folks, there is never going to be a deal. Iran has never signed and implemented a security deal with anyone. In fact, the only thing that even comes close is the 1987 ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq War, which was never turned into a peace agreement. 

They haven’t signed a deal with Iraq or with Turkey or with Pakistan or with anyone. We’ve got some cooperation, deals on economics and say nuclear sharing with the Russians and the Chinese, and that’s about it. So if you’re obsessed with a deal on oil or technology or security, you just waste your time obsessing about something else. This is not how Persian society works. 

I would love to be wrong, but I’ve been right since 1979, when I was five. Oh my God. Oh. Anyway, so this is what a holding pattern in the Middle East looks like. People throw weapons at one another, things explode. But we’re waiting for someone to fundamentally change the nature of the relationship. And I just don’t see that happening on the Iranian side anytime soon. 

Oh, one more thing. The Israelis have proven that while they can take out, Iran’s air defense, and while they can’t operate with impunity above Iranian skies, they lack the deep strike capability that is necessary to take out something like the Iranian nuclear program. Now. So now it’s an open question whether the United States lacks that capacity, and not just because of the size of the bombs. 

The Iranians have been preparing in some form, for this sort of attack for decades, and that means that while these are the three most important sites that the Iranians have, they have dozens of others now, collectively, they’re not as important as these three. So while this undoubtedly has set setback, that it because the program quite a bit it’s certainly not over. 

And the question now is whether the Iranians try to spin the paramilitary forces back up, spin their nuclear system back up, or try something new. We’re not going to learn that in the next two days.

Israel’s Uncertain Endgame in Iran

Aftermath of Israeli strike at the IRIB building. Photo by wikimedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_war#/media/File:Attack_on_IRIB's_Live_News_Broadcasting_Studio_07.jpg

Israel and Iran are still in the thick of an air war, which is really their only option given the several countries between them. But are things going to ramp up here soon? Is nuclear war coming? Will the US get involved?

This conflict began because the Israelis wanted to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The reality is that Iran wasn’t even close to having a fully fleshed out nuclear weapon, they’re only just at the early enrichment stage of the process. So, cross that one off the list. What else could Israel be pushing for then?

Israel might be working towards instigating a regime change in Iran. A quick history lesson will teach us that Iran is a theocracy, seated deeply in a mountainous region, with thousands of years of continuity; simply killing the Supreme Leader isn’t going to change anything. But what if the Israelis got some help?

US involvement would most likely come in the form of air support, and it would require lots of bunker-busting bombs, with no guarantee of permanent success. But again, this wouldn’t spark regime change or revolution. Is dragging the US into a deeper conflict without a clear end goal worth it?

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Transcript

Hey, all. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from sunny Colorado. Today we’re going to talk about what’s going on with the Israel Iran war, the possibility of the United States getting involved and what you should look for and why. Core issue is that Iran and Israel not only don’t border one another, there’s a couple of major countries in between them with some major population centers, most notably Iraq. 

So there is no way for these countries to get at each other in terms of land action. There are only two ways they can interact. One is basically an air war, which we have right now. And the second option would be an exchange of nukes. On that front. The Israelis have about 150 nuclear weapons, mostly tactical scale. 

And the Iranians have none. Now, one of the reasons people have been arguing for striking Iran for a long time is to prevent them from getting nukes, but keep in mind, it’s a multi-stage process. And the Iranians haven’t completed the first one. So step one is you get uranium or you spin it until you get enough weapons grade fissile material that you can then make an explosive core. 

That is the stage that the Iranians were close to completing. However, once you have enough fissile material, you then have to build some explosives that make a perfect implosion to force the nuclear reaction to happen. They don’t have those. Then you have to make an explosive device. They haven’t done that. Then you have to ruggedized that system so it can survive an attack. 

They haven’t done that. And then you have to miniaturize it. So you can either put on a bomb that a plane can carry or a missile. And they haven’t done that. So even if they had enough to make a uranium or God forbid, a plutonium core, they don’t have any of the additional steps. And at the pace that they’ve gone so far just to get to this step. 

We’re not talking about this being a reasonable threat this century. That’s piece one. So if you want to talk about regime change, you now have to shift to a different sort of conversation. Yes, Iran is a deeply authoritarian system, but it is not a dictatorship. It is not a one man rule. This is not Putin’s Russia. This is not Xi’s China. 

This is something else. This is a theocracy. So even if the Grand Ayatollah who’s in charge of everything right now, where to kick it tomorrow with either because he’s older than dust or because a bomb drops on his head that doesn’t remove the regime. There are over 15,000 mullahs that are part of the ruling class. And while regime change certainly could lead to a period of instability. 

It doesn’t fundamentally change what Iran is. And what Iran is, is Persia. Iran is a bunch of mountains. It’s not a chunk of plains like Mesopotamia. It’s not a single seaside community like Israel. It’s about 80 million people who live in mountains. 

Some version of Persia has existed almost since the beginning of the human story. It is one of the original civilizations of our species. And yes, the government has fallen from time to time, but really, we’ve only had seven regime change that are worthy of the term in 6000 years. We’re not going to see one this year. And the United States lacks the capacity to force that issue, even if it does get involved. 

Now, in this heartbeat, the United States does not have any carrier stationed in the Persian Gulf somewhere on the way. This heartbeat. We don’t have a large military force in Iraq any longer. So if we want to do a ground invasion, we’re talking about some months of prep. Hopefully none of that happens. But if the United States was to get involved in the air war version of this, keep in mind that the various aspects of the Iranian nuclear program have been preparing for an American air war for the better part of the last 40 years. 

And so it’s dispersed. It’s hardened. It’s underground. And does the United States have enough bunker busters to take them all out? Because you would probably need a couple thousand. Maybe some of these facilities would probably take several dozen all by themselves. And yes, that might remove the theoretical future of a nuclear program which is nowhere close to producing a weapon. 

But then what? Iran is still Iran. Persia is still Persia. The United States can’t send in a military force on the ground to clean up the entire clerical class. No. If there is going to be a meaningful regime change, if Iran is going to enter a fundamentally different governing age, it’s going to have to be a revolution. And you don’t sponsor a revolution with bombs dropped from the air. 

So where does that take us? I’m honestly not sure. Donald Trump’s inner circle on national security issues is small and incompetent, and being nudged by the Russians to get us directly involved in the fight as quickly and as deeply and up to our eyeballs as is possible. It is unclear, from my point of view if Donald Trump is falling for it, yet he keeps his own counsel on issues like this. 

It’s one of the few things he’s quiet on. But forces are moving into the region. So we are all going to find out probably within the next week or two.

What is Israel’s Victory Condition in Iran?

Attacks by Israeli Air Force in Tehran. Photo by Wikimedia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Pictures_of_the_Israeli_attack_on_Tehran_1_Mehr_%282%29.jpg

Israel and Iran are still going at it, but things have not significantly escalated. Here’s a breakdown of the situation and what could come next.

Israel has been able to take out Iran’s air defenses and strike some key nuclear sites, especially at the Natanz facility that enriches mid-grade uranium. However, all of Iran’s advanced stuff is dispersed and hidden deep underground, which is beyond Israel’s current strike capabilities. Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes have been largely ineffective due to poor targeting capabilities and strong Israeli defense systems.

So, Israel can continue to hit targets that delay and stall Iran’s nuclear program, but outright destroying the nuclear program probably isn’t in the cards. The question then becomes – what is Israel’s victory condition? If fully eliminating Iran’s nuclear capabilities is off the table, will they turn towards crippling Iran’s economy?

It remains unclear where and how far the Israelis will take this campaign, but unless they escalate their effort, they’ll just be buying time.

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Transcript

Hey, all, Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from Colorado. We are going to talk about the status of the air war between Iran and Israel. Today it is the 16th of June. You’ll be seeing this one in the morning. Short version. It hasn’t gotten all that serious from a physical damage point of view, especially on the Israeli side. 

Iran lacks meaningful long range power production capacity. They’ve got a lot of missiles. But they’re not particularly smart. And the Israelis have a pretty good theater missile defense. And that’s before you consider the Americans are helping as well. So no appreciable damage inflicted within Israel at the moment. Going the other direction. The Israelis have been primarily targeting air defense, which has proven to be woefully inadequate, on the Iranian side and have taken out the easy targets in the Iranian nuclear development program, most notably the centrifuge complexes at Natanz. 

That is where most of the centrifuges are. That’s where they take raw yellowcake, which is processed, uranium ore and turn it into a kind of a mid enriched uranium. From that point, the stuff is then sent to other facilities to go to highly enriched uranium. And the idea would be that if you get highly enriched enough that you could make a actual bomb. 

No indications at the moment that the Iranians have been getting to the level of enrichment that is necessary to then go to the next part of the process. The problem that the Israelis are facing is that those more advanced centrifuges, the one that goes a higher percentage of fissile material, are underground. They’re buried. They’re dispersed. 

Keep in mind that the Iranians have kind of been playing with their nuclear industry for 30 years now, and the Iranians always assumed that when the bombs actually fell on them to break up their nuclear program, it was going to be the United States dropping the bombs. And the United States would have had things like aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf that would be flying out of places like Kuwait and gutter. 

And so there would be lots and lots and lots of sorties dropping very, very advanced bombs that are designed to penetrate very, very deep places. Israelis don’t have any of that. They’re flying from an extra thousand kilometers away. They don’t have the deep penetration capacity. So can Israel hurt Iran? Of course. Can they take it all out? I really doubt it. 

It’s an open question whether the United States could, which means that the Iranian nuclear program is only stalled so long as the bombing continues, and Israel only has so many weapons that can be used in this conflict. So the question we need to start asking ourselves is, what is the victory condition for Israel? Because their ability to actually destroy everything in the nuclear program is probably not going to happen. 

So what they seem to be doing is going after the power infrastructure and the access infrastructure to delay what’s left of the Iranian nuclear program as long as possible, which is a reasonable plan. And then the question becomes whether or not they decide to do more to set back Iran. More generally, going after military sites is kind of pointless because Iran’s military, for the most part, is infantry based. 

And if you’re doing long range pinpoint attacks, you’re just not going to break it up in any meaningful way. But you could torpedo the Iranian economy by going after the oil refining capacity. Iran is an oil exporter, not merely what they used to be back in their heyday, probably only about a million, a million and a half barrels a day. 

Today. That includes the smuggling, but they are highly dependent upon fuel processing at home just to keep the country together. So if you go after the refineries, which are much easier than going after the oil fields, the Israelis could achieve two things. Number one, that could destabilize the internal regime, because if there’s not fuel, it’s really hard to maintain an industrial level economy. 

And second, it would actually probably pour some literal oil on troubled waters, because if the Iranians can’t process the crude into fuel, they would then be forced to export more crude, which would actually weirdly push oil prices down. Something to consider. No sign that the Israelis are doing that right now, but considering their limited options for actually removing the nuclear card from the board, it’s something that seems pretty feasible to me.

Oil Markets Aren’t Worried About Iran

Photo of gas pumps at a station

With everything going on between Israel and Iran right now, I know what you’re thinking – it’s time to run to Costco and fill up the gas tank. Hear me out though, we don’t live in the same world we did a few decades ago.

Oil markets aren’t reacting to this conflict for a few reasons, but it boils down to where the crude is coming from. Between the US shale revolution and a diminishing importance of the Persian Gulf in oil markets, this conflict just doesn’t move the needle like it used to.

Sure, there could be a situation where I might start to worry. But that would require Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz (very unlikely) OR marching troops all the way to Saudi Arabia’s oil fields (also very unlikely). So, unless some dramatic military step is taken by Iran, we can all just fill up whenever it’s convenient.

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Transcript

Hey, all Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from a somewhat breezy and drizzly Colorado. Today we’re going to talk about the attack that happened over the weekend in Iran. Israel’s basically bombing the crap out of Iran, going after the nuclear facilities. And, contrary to popular concern, oil prices really haven’t done all that much. They’ve moved less than 10%. 

Why do they not care? Why do I not care? Now, if you back up 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago, any sort of spat involving Israel in any way immediately sent oil prices through the roof. And if it involved Iran, oh boy howdy. Because the Persian Gulf remains, even today, the world’s largest producer of crude and by far the world’s largest exporter of the stuff. 

And with in the modern day, the Europeans no longer taking crude from, Russia because of the Ukraine war, it’s become more important to global petroleum than it’s ever been before. However, however, however, there is another factor and that is the US shale revolution. The United States, in the last 20 years has gone from the world’s largest importer crude to, in gross terms, the second largest exporter, second only to Saudi Arabia. Does that mean we’re completely immune to what’s going on? But it does mean that we’re dumping more than 10 million barrels a day of crude into this market than what we did before, closer to 15, actually, now that I think about it. 

And that changes the math for everything, because if we did have a sharp cut off of the very thing in the Persian Gulf, the United States would face some teething pains as we use some of the crude grades that we produce in refineries that weren’t designed for it. But overall, we’d be okay. And having that extra 10 or 15 million barrels a day of global production just means that in percentage terms, the Middle East doesn’t matter nearly as much as it used to. 

Now, where does that take us? More specifically, what would make us worry? I am of the opinion now that even if Iran decided it wanted to shut down the shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf, it probably couldn’t. They’ve got a lot of small boats. A lot of them are really nothing more than, speedboats. It could do some damage. 

But about the only thing that is going to get Iran any assistance, any sympathy in the international system is if it doesn’t shut down the energy line that allows countries like China to function. If it does, that really is all on its own, except for the Russians, who would be happy to see global energy go up in smoke, which means, it’s down to how good their military is. 

And, you know, Iran has never, ever, ever in its history been a naval power. Probably the last battle that Iran was really noteworthy. It was like against Sparta. And if you’ve seen, you know, those movies, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It didn’t end well. What would make me care? Well, if Iran were to take its military and surge it into Iraq and south through Kuwait and go for the Saudi oil fields with the intention of taking them offline. 

That would get my attention. Iraq plus Kuwait. You’re talking 5 to 6 million barrels a day. Once you talk about the Saudi oil fields, you’re talking about another ten. All of these Saudi oil fields are in the far east of the country, really close to gutter. In a Shia majority area, and in theory with the Iranians, who are also Shia religiously, would get along with these people. 

So you could see some sort of rebellion happening at the same time. But for that to happen, that would be a big risk for Iran these days. One of the things we’ve seen with the Israeli attack is Iran no longer has any meaningful air defense whatsoever, and it’s generally easier to have static air defense in it. It has mobile air defense. 

So if they take their army and throw it at Saudi Arabia, they would have no air cover at all. In addition, Iran does not have what we would consider to be a mechanized military. It’s an infantry heavy force. So you’d basically be sending, don’t know, 50,000 hundred thousand, 200,000 men marching through the desert, 500 miles. Leaving aside the logistical terrain, that would be easy pickings. 

They would be completely open to the sky the entire way. And so even a successful operation would be hugely costly for them. And a failed operation would mean the end of the Iranian government, because the Iranian military wasn’t designed to fight other countries. It was designed to occupy all of the non Iranian non Persians in the country of Iran. 

Only about half the population are ethnically Persian. So if if they were to do that, it would be incredibly risky. And unless they pull it off successfully, I still don’t care and neither should you.

Israel Launches Attack on Iranian Nuclear Sites

Photo of attacks on Tehran by Israel in June 2025 targeting top military officials. Photo by Wikimedia Commons: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Destroyed_buildings_as_aftermath_of_2025_Israeli_attack_on_some_areas_in_Tehran_23_Tasnim.jpg

Israel has launched a significant military campaign against Iran, primarily targeting nuclear facilities. Let’s break down the targets, impacts, and what’s coming.

A handful of sites used in uranium enrichment, fabrication, and machining were hit, along with several Iranian scientists and military figures.

Iran’s air defenses have fallen short, and given the amount and style of attacks, it’s likely that Israeli agents have made their way into Iran. The response from Iran has been lackluster and that’s not likely to change; with limited response options (paramilitary proxies like Hezbollah and the Houthis are too weak), missile and drone launches are the extent of Tehran’s retaliatory options.

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Transcript

Hey, all. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from a slightly stormy Colorado within the last 12 hours. The Israeli government has started a broad scale military campaign against Iran, going after primarily their nuclear facilities. This is the big one already. They’ve done more damage in Iran than any other power has done since the rise of the Ayatollah back in 1979. 

And they’re telegraphing that this is going to continue for at least a couple of weeks. The damage inflicted is notable, but let’s do a quick breakdown of what’s going on and where it’s likely to go before we all jump to conclusions. So first of all, let’s start with the non nuclear targets. The Israelis have targeted nuclear scientists. They have targeted military leaders. 

They haven’t had a success and targeted at least some of them. But honestly this is not all that impressive from my point of view. Israel has been going after nuclear scientists for the better part of the last 20 years. It’s not a great industry to be in if you want to live. So taking out 2 or 3 here and there doesn’t really change much. 

And as for the military leadership, Iran’s military is an occupation force that Iran uses to keep its own population in check. It’s not really capable of projections across territory. So if they were all gutted and it’s only been a few, it really doesn’t change the math at all. Got Iran affects its region through paramilitary groups that are not Iranian citizens. 

So by supplying them with equipment like the Houthis in Yemen. So gutting these two ranks of people doesn’t really change my math for anything of more significance is going after the nuclear facilities. Primarily we’re looking at Natanz, which is the primary enrichment facility that the Iranians used to turn uranium ore into something that can be used, fissile isotopes that can be used in weapons. 

There are secondary facilities in a place called Isfahan, which also handles a lot of fabrication. And higher end machining. In theory, being designed to be put into weapons. Now, let’s be clear. The Iranians have never tested a nuclear device. They have never demonstrated that you have the ability to put a nuclear device onto a missile and miniaturize it and ruggedized it so it can actually be thrown. 

We’re just talking here about a country that at the moment is working on enrichment and maybe the next couple of steps. And then the Israelis have started targeting an area called for, though, which is just sort of calm. For though, is the one place in the country where the centrifuges that are used to enrich uranium are actually in a reinforced location under the mountain. It is unclear whether the Israelis have the military capability of shattering for though this is where they turn. 

Kind of like mid-enriched uranium into highly enriched uranium, the fissile stuff, you can make a bomb out of, and so they’re going after things like air defense, power grids, that sort of thing going after the access points. Early days. We’re really only in the second wave of attacks right now. But the damage is notable. 

What? The Israelis have not gone after to this point are known stockpiles of nuclear fuel or the operational civilian power plant at Bushehr. It appears that they don’t want to be accused of war crimes by basically doing an inadvertent or maybe advertised dirty bomb in civilian areas. So that has not happened to this point. 

All right. What’s next? 

What is perhaps most interesting about this attack so far is there has been no meaningful Iranian air defense at all in the last two rounds of strikes over the last year, which were much smaller by comparison. Israel went after the air defenses first and discovered that they weren’t nearly as robust as they thought they were. These are older systems, or Russian systems, that have been purchased in the last 30 years, and apparently against the Israelis, who have a much more sophisticated, air penetration capacity than, say, Ukraine. 

They’re just not working at all. So if you’re a country out there and you bought a lot of Russian air defenses, you may have wasted a lot of money. Anyway, the Israelis aren’t just attacking with impunity. They’re actually announcing what their future targets would be. And there is plenty of indications across Iran that the Israelis have infiltrated and put agents on the ground and are using things like drones to go after movement of things like trucks and personnel. 

So if you announce you’re going to hit X site, an X site pulls out of their bunkers and starts to run, then they get hit by drones. So this is something that the Israelis very clearly have been working on for months. And it’s been played out so far pretty effectively. Whether it will completely destroy the Iranian nuclear program is, of course, an open question, because there are so many sites, and the Iranians have been preparing for this for so long. 

But if there’s anything that we have learned about Iran over the last few years, is that a lot of their stuff is not nearly as robust as they thought it was. It’s a lot more brittle. And so the Iranians really don’t have any good way to respond. Iranian power is not about the conventional military. They’re stuck in their mountain fastness. 

Half their population is not Persian. It’s in their paramilitary groups that they support around the country. She is in Iraq, Houthis in Yemen, maybe the Palestinians, if they get lucky, Hezbollah in Lebanon. And most of those groups between the American war on terror and recent Israeli operations have basically been gutted at the organization on the leadership level. 

And so none of them can really strike back against Israel in a meaningful way. That just leaves missiles. And yes, we have reports now that several hundred of those have been flying over, I should say several dozen. We’ve got drones and missiles. A lot of things are in the air. It’s not clear yet that they can get through Israeli defense or not. 

We’re. Oh, rain. We’re nearing a position where if Iran still thinks it’s going to have strategic leverage in anything, it’s going to have to use it or lose it. The thing is, it may know well that if it uses it, it will be its last shot and it’s not going to achieve anything anyway. Anyway, no one can decide the political and strategic math on that, except for the Iranian government and they’re under assault.