WATCH STRAIT

“all of these countries are trying to diversify away from oil, and they're sort of sometimes they overlap on the same sectors at times. They have different visions for how to manage the oil wealth, which is important and that sometimes shows up in OPEC plus meetings.”

“Iran had just basically two simple goals because they were completely cornered, which is basically survival of the system and the terrence so that they don't get attacked again in a few months. And they thought they could achieve this. So it's very very clear goals, very existential.”

“The second is that we have combat air patrol, probably either two or four set slots, which means four or eight aircraft persistently overhead whenever we're convoying with F-15s, F-16s or F-18s equipped with what's called the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, APKWS, a cheap rocket, a $25,000 rocket that is extremely effective against the Shahed drones. It's used extensively by Ukraine and it's effective in a maritime environment.”

“NATO's annual budget is 3.8 billion, US shares 16%, why? For what? Why are we given 16%? And by the way, we give you 16% and you want to come out and say you don't want to support? And you don't want to back us up if we're making the ask?”

“What we're seeing is that the void is being filled by leaders who in most cases are more radical than the people who have replaced. And by more radical, we mean that they are staunchly anti-American and have no tolerance for domestic dissent. And many of them are kind of guided by this apocalyptic military ideology.”

“The nuclear file, I think it's entirely possible that the Iranians will be willing to agree to most of what the United States is asking for on the nuclear file because, you know, this is the one area where it's obvious that the US will not be willing to compromise. So we might look to see whether they've actually moved towards the idea that they would have to accept an end to their nuclear program.”

“The US Embassy in Beirut says Iran may now target US universities in Lebanon. The American University of Beirut has shifted some classes online. The embassy has also upped its overall warning telling US citizens to leave Lebanon now.”

“Israel is saying they're putting boots on the ground in Lebanon. The war so far has cost $21 billion to all the people that are taxpayers. Wondering how much you have to pay up. That bill is coming here very soon. $21 billion thus far.”

“Every time I would ask that question from sources, I would say, who is making the decisions? Who's running the country? And I would hear Sepah. Sepah means the revolutionary guards. No one said the Ayatollah. No one said it's the supreme leader, and that was just such a difference to how things were done before the war where the senior Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran for thirty seven years, always had the last word on all decisions that were critical to the state.”

“President Trump said on Truth Social that dozens of planes took part in the operation to save the airmen after his F-15 fighter jet was hit over western Iran on Friday. The plane's pilot was quickly rescued, but the weapons officer, an Air Force colonel, had to go into hiding. Trump wrote, quote, This brave warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran. US rescue aircraft came under fire, but managed to reach the airmen and fly him out of the country.”

“Flights are more expensive because fuel prices are increased due to the Strait of Hormuz being mostly closed for the last four weeks. In the Middle East region, aviation data showed more than 46,000 flights cancelled since February 28th, when the US and Israel began attacking Iran.”

“China since 1949, since the communists took over, has a track record of never ever ever helping in any international organization or environment. They're cheap skates at the United Nations when it comes to paying bills. I mean, we may not pay our bill but at least we volunteer to have a big bill. On top of it, they don't untreat the security anywhere in the world.”

“Easter comes this year into a world torn by wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and at a time of great political strife in the US., yet Christians around the world celebrate, as they have for millennia, the resurrection of Christ, as the triumph of light over darkness, peace over violence, life over death.”

“What we're seeing is that the void is being filled by leaders who in most cases are more radical than the people who have replaced. And by more radical, we mean that they are staunchly anti-American and have no tolerance for domestic dissent. And many of them are kind of guided by this apocalyptic military ideology.”

“I think that we saw a very strong statement from Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, saying that the coalition would always come together and it would support the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. And in a way, the Iranians have helped us in this respect, because closing international waters is obviously against international law.”

“Iran is sending the message that they think they've won, right? That the war has actually has been in their favor, despite these kind of devastating losses to Iran's military capabilities and infrastructure. The war has also showed that they have cards to play, that they were able to basically hold the world economy hostage. And I think the fact they found this new leverage in the Strait of Hormuz has further added to this sense of confidence.”

“They've now discovered that they can control it, that they can even threaten ships by suggesting there are mines at the bottom of the seas. And, of course, insurance companies are not going to risk it, and that alone will upend the global shipping and energy and economy.”

“In the case of President Trump, you know, you and I have talked before about his negotiating style. He likes to carry a big stick. He weighs it initially. He then uses it. And then, of course, he very quickly pivots to, you know, you can have peace if you'll just make the right deal. Everything is about the art of the deal, isn't it?”

“Trump warned NATO of a very bad future if allies do not help open up the Strait of Hormuz and said he may also delay a planned summit with President Xi. I think China could help, too, because China gets 90% of its oil from straits. It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there.”

“Iran's new national security chief is someone called Mohammed Bagher Zulkhadra. He's a former Revolutionary Guard commander and has a very violent background. Before the Revolution, he was basically an assassin who was personally involved in the assassination of policemen as well as of an American engineer. He was considered so extreme even by his own peers who thought he was too radical even for them.”

“As for humans who have looked at the moon our entire lives, it just looked different out the window, and that is wild. It just really put our place in the universe in perspective.”

“They are announcing to the world that they won’t negotiate on nuclear arms or their missile programs, which is essentially telling the international community to go jump in a lake. This isn't just posturing; it's a fundamental rejection of the diplomatic process. When you refuse to talk about the very weapons that threaten the existence of your neighbors, you are signaling that you have no intention of ever living in peace.”

“The incident started when a gunman attempted to storm the annual event where president Trump and senior cabinet officials were in attendance. The attacker ran through a security checkpoint and exchanged fire with the authorities before being subdued and taken into custody. He was armed with knives, a shotgun, and a handgun.”

“Absolutely not. In fact, what we have seen is a hardening of Iran's leadership. The more extreme elements of the Revolutionary Guards and hardliners in the political system are now much more firmly in control than they were before the war. There has been a change in the regime and it's been for the worse.”

“Iran's foreign minister went to Islamabad, and The US special envoy Steve Witkoff and president Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner were scheduled to also fly to Pakistan on Saturday, and everyone anticipated another round of talks. And then we started getting mixed messages. The Iranians said, oh, well, we're not meeting directly with the Americans, and the foreign minister left Pakistan. And president Trump abruptly announced on social media that he was canceling the talks and not sending his envoys to meet with the Iranians.”

“President Trump has not said anything about the missing airmen. But earlier today, he threatened to unleash, quote, all hell if the Strait of Hormuz wasn't open by Monday.”

“Meta doesn't want to lay off 100 people, not 1,000 people. 20% of the workforce cut as AI infrastructure costs continue to soar across operations report. 20% of their employees, they're laying off because of AI costs? That's what they're saying. Everybody's blaming AI.”

“In fact, people who I spoke to in Iran were telling me that the decision making is now kind of like a board of directors, that the Ayatollah is sort of the director of the board, and the generals are the members of the board, and that, yeah, it's not a one man show anymore. And when those decisions are eventually brought to the supreme leader, through couriers, to his hideout, is he essentially being asked to rubber stamp them?”

“I know one of them is some good news for some of you guys that were having a hard time with the cost of renunciating your citizenship of $2,400. They're giving a massive, massive 80% discount to those who hate America and want to go to a different country. Life-changing news to those that want to leave America from $2,350 to $450.”

“the direction is going to go down, and it's going to go down because you having the interruptions to oil exports, because that source of capital is that you export oil and gas. You get the income, you spend some of it domestically, and then the surplus you invest a broad”

“And the fourth and the most important, the one that does not exist at this moment, is 10 to 14 large surface combatants. We know them as ages destroyers, like the Arleigh Burke class destroyers you're seeing on the TV, Launch of the Tomahawks. Those same ones have a great air defense system. They're the perfect escort ship. I think 10 to 14 of them is kind of the right number to at least get the initial choke, the 250 ships that are stuck on the inside the Gulf out.”

“The Iranian regime is essentially signing its own death warrant by continuing down this path of escalation and refusal to compromise. They are betting that the West is too tired of conflict to respond, but history shows that when you threaten the global economy and pursue nuclear weapons simultaneously, you eventually cross a line that cannot be uncrossed. This regime is flirting with total destruction.”

“Some analysts say that had there not been a war, the selection of Mushtaba Khamenei would have been a lot less likely. But because his father had been killed, because he was injured, because there was war, it meant that there was more momentum behind him, that choosing him sent a message of continuity and defiance from the political leadership.”

“Iran is sending the message that they think they've won, right? That the war has actually has been in their favor, despite these kind of devastating losses to Iran's military capabilities and infrastructure. The war has also showed that they have cards to play, that they were able to basically hold the world economy hostage. And I think the fact they found this new leverage in the Strait of Hormuz has further added to this sense of confidence.”

“The newly appointed Iranian ambassador in Lebanon, the Lebanese have withdrawn their agreement to his appointment, and he is to stay even though he's not being given credentials by the government of Lebanon. Now it's an extraordinary statement that Lebanon is not a sovereign country and that the sovereignty in Lebanon is possessed by the Iranians.”

“President Trump warned Iran today in a profane written post on social media that the US will attack key Iranian economic and infrastructure installations Tuesday. This, if no deal, is agreed to before then to keep open the key strait of Hormuz. On NBC's Meet the Press, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine criticized the president.”

“If you're Saudi, if you're the UAA and you have these alternative routs to Hormus, it's probably one of the better investments that you've made over the past few decades and it's paying off now.”

“But this isn't about retribution. This is about preventing them from imposing their will on the Middle East and on US security interests in the Middle East for the next three, five or seven years. And in that case, I am okay with this conflict. We are achieving a lot of mission, but we haven't won.”

“Iran's foreign minister went to Islamabad, and The US special envoy Steve Witkoff and president Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner were scheduled to also fly to Pakistan on Saturday, and everyone anticipated another round of talks. And then we started getting mixed messages. The Iranians said, oh, well, we're not meeting directly with the Americans, and the foreign minister left Pakistan.”

“An F-15, which is a very good fighter jet, was struck by Iranian fire in western Iran, and this set off an urgent rescue operation by US forces for the two crew members, a pilot and a weapons officer. One was rescued. We still don't know the fate of the other.”

“President Trump is again threatening Iran, saying on social media today, it has 48 hours left to open the Strait of Hormuz, or quote, all hell will rain down and glory be to God. He's already delayed that threat twice. This is the US and Israel continue to pound Iran.”

“For the first time in forty seven years, the generals have gone to the Americans and said, if there's a deal, your oil and shipping companies can come and invest in Iran. You can help us reconstruct and rebuild. And that's something that's never been done before.”

“Holy Week services are mixed with funerals and the sound of explosions. Israel's military says it's striking Hezbollah's infrastructure after killing a thousand of its members. Three United Nations peacekeepers have been wounded at their base in the south.”

“Hundreds of TSA workers resigned during the recent pay disruption, and experts say it can take months to hire and train replacements. That means staffing levels can vary by airport and even by the time of day, creating unpredictable wait times for travelers.”

“He's been moved to a very high secure secret place. Access to him is almost impossible for government officials or military commanders. There's no electronics around him. He can't speak on the phone or engage electronically in any way. And communicating with him is sort of, you know, the old ways of writing longhand letters, sealing it in an envelope, and having a human chain of couriers carry the letters to his secure place and then back.”

“They've now discovered that they can control it, that they can even threaten ships by suggesting there are mines at the bottom of the seas. And, of course, insurance companies are not going to risk it, and that alone will upend the global shipping and energy and economy. So they now have a tool in their disposal, and they're trying to figure out how to monetize it because they've calculated that if they toll the ships that are passing through the Strait Of Hormoz, they can make a lot more money than they do from their oil revenues.”

“President Trump is currently doing what he does best: keeping everyone guessing as to what his next move will be. The media wants a five-point plan, but Trump understands that unpredictability is a form of leverage. By keeping the Iranian regime off-balance, he prevents them from being able to calculate exactly how far they can push before they face a devastating response.”

“The IRGC has decided that the best way to handle their failing economy and their failing legitimacy at home is to lash out at the global energy supply by launching new attacks in the Strait of Hormuz. This is a classic move by a regime that feels the walls closing in, but they are playing a very dangerous game with the world's oil supply. If they think the world is just going to sit by while they choke off the energy lanes, they are deeply mistaken.”

“I think we would have to assume that they're non-negotiable or it's going to be anything about regime change or human rights within Iran. They're going to want to be absolutely sure that they can maintain control in Iran. The other three files—nuclear, missiles, and proxies—are different, but regime survival is hardline.”

“These generals are not as motivated and driven by the cleric ideology that defined Iran in the past forty seven years, sort of the death to America, the religious theocracy. What motivates these generals is power and money. And for both of those things to happen, the regime needs to survive, and it needs to thrive economically.”

“The president and Secretary Hegseth's rhetoric about no mercy, no quarter, death from above, the bombing of the Stone Ages, this kind of rhetoric is really dangerous because the likelihood of having downed pilots or others who are captured in a war like this is very high. And if you send the message that there's no quarter for the folks on the other side, that really encourages them to mistreat our folks.”

“The uptick in attacks comes as part of a wider Ukrainian effort to limit Russia's financial windfall from the US and Israel's decision to attack Iran. That war has brought soaring global energy prices and new customers for Russian oil and gas at a moment when Russia's economy had been struggling due to Western sanctions.”

“Well, because these generals are not as motivated and driven by the cleric ideology that defined Iran in the past forty seven years, sort of the death to America, the religious theocracy. What motivates these generals is power and money. And for both of those things to happen, the regime needs to survive, and it needs to thrive economically.”

“this is not the first time that the US security umbrella disappoints the Gulf. This is one episode out of several. There's this current one which is probably the biggest. There's an episode in twenty seventeen one cutter Face to blockade from its neighbors and didn't get the US protection that it wanted.”

“it seems that whatever happens in the short term with this particular conflict, that the region, the Gulf region and the Middle East has already been vastly, vastly changed.”

“There is a move within the Democratic Party toward what I call Third Worldism, where the interests of rogue states are prioritized over the interests of the United States and its allies. This perspective sees the United States as a global bully rather than a force for good. It’s a ideology that treats the IRGC with more sympathy than it treats the people who are actually trying to maintain order in the Middle East.”

“Some analysts say that had there not been a war, the selection of Mushtaba Khamenei would have been a lot less likely. But because his father had been killed, because he was injured, because there was war, it meant that there was more momentum behind him, that choosing him sent a message of continuity and defiance from the political leadership.”

“So the mudurithinking about this, the Mudi thinking, you know, this is this is what wars do. They change a lot of things and a lot of perspectives on things, and that goes into corners that we didn't think about before, including architecture.”

“In my interviews over the past month, every time I would ask that question from sources, I would say, who is making the decisions? Who's running the country? And I would hear Sepah. Sepah. Sepah means the revolutionary guards. No one said the Ayatollah. No one said it's the supreme leader. And that was just such a difference to how things were done before the war, where the senior Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran for thirty seven years, always had the last word on all decisions that were critical to the state.”

“I think the second thing, the defense spending will go up, one because they need to replenish on the defense systems that they've been using over the past six weeks. And second because they're realizing that the world is a far more dangerous place than it was six weeks ago.”

“He's had three operations and is waiting for a prosthetic leg. He's had operations on one of his arms and hands, and his face and lips have been burned severely. And the burns are so extensive that he can't even speak properly, which is one of the reasons why we haven't heard his voice or seen his face.”

“The story exposed a federal directive to send pregnant migrant children to a single group home in South Texas beginning last July. Child welfare advocates say the move was intended to detain the pregnant girls in a state where abortion is illegal.”

“Iran's new national security chief is someone called Mohammed Bagher Zulkhadra. He's a former Revolutionary Guard commander and has a very violent background. Before the Revolution, he was basically an assassin who was personally involved in the assassination of policemen as well as of an American engineer. He was considered so extreme even by his own peers who thought he was too radical even for them.”

“For the first time in forty seven years, the generals have gone to the Americans and said, if there's a deal, your oil and shipping companies can come and invest in Iran. You can help us reconstruct and rebuild. And that's something that's never been done before. The senior Ayatollah Khamenei had specifically banned all American companies from coming to Iran after the 2015 nuclear deal, and now the generals are doing away with that order.”

“Absolutely not. In fact, what we have seen is a hardening of Iran's leadership. The more extreme elements of the Revolutionary Guards and hardliners in the political system are now much more firmly in control than they were before the war. There has been a change in the regime and it's been for the worse.”

“And what my largest concern is that sometimes when the president says we won, the next words I have is about our cease operations. That would actually lead to a capital L loss for the United States and for our allies and partners because very quickly, we become clear to everyone that Iran remains in control of the Straits of Hormuz at this time. We have not yet established our control over that.”

“The governor of Russia's northwestern Leningrad region said Ukrainian drones caused a fuel leak at the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk, the latest in a series of attacks that have slowed shipments of oil out of one of Russia's largest export hubs. Separately, authorities in the Nizhny Novgorod region to the east of Moscow reported Ukrainian drone strikes caused a massive fire at one of Russia's largest oil refineries.”