Shaun Newman Podcast - #620 - Alex Krainer

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

Croatian national, former hedge fund manager, author, and contributing editor at Zero Hedge. We discuss WWIII, Iran and the history of the middle east. SNP Presents returns April 27th Tickets Below: https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone/ Let me know what you think. Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast E-transfer here: [e-mail] Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Text: [phone] – and be sure to let them know you’re an SNP listener.

This is Tom Longo. This is Alex Crane. This is Franco Tarzano. I'm Dr. Peter McCullet. This is Joshua Allen, the cowboy preacher, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome with the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday, Hump Day. How's everybody doing?

You know, we got an interesting one to store for you today. Before we get there, though, how about we start with silver gold bull? Of course, they're my favorite precious metals dealer, offering a full suite of services to help you buy, sell, and store precious metals. They're based here in Alberta. They ship metal discreetly, fully insured, and was tracking straight to you. I just got a picture yesterday from a lovely listener,

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Okay. SMP presents returns April 27th. Yes, that is just a few short days away in Lloyd Minster, Martin Armstrong, virtually in person. We got Tom Longo, Alice Craneer, Chris Sims, Curtis Stone, Chuck Prodnick, Mikkelthorpe, and Dave Bradley. It is going to be a full lineup. There's still a few tickets left. I don't know what you're waiting for, but you're, you know, good old Lloyd Minster and area, we're last minute Lloyd, right? If you haven't got your ticket, There is a few still available. Buy it now down in the show notes. It's going to be a full day. You will not be disappointed. Looking forward to it. Four different roundtables. We're going to twist and turn the groups of men and women that speak in it.

Two of those roundtables are going to be led by Chris Sims instead of yours truly. I'm going to get to sit in on two of them. Chris Sims is going to get to lead two of them. I think that's going to be a lot of fun. At suppertime, we got Ethan Hardy. two-time Grandmaster Fiddled Champ of Canada. He's going to be here with a piano player. They're going to give us some late entertainment, if you would,

through supper time and then for a little bit after. That should be interesting. So the entire day looks extremely exciting, looking forward to it. And if you haven't bought your tickets, once again, down on the show notes, make it to Lloyd Minster, April 27th. You're not going to be disappointed. And on the 28th, we have the Sunday morning service with the Cowboy. preacher Tanner in a day and Cam Milliken.

Think SMP presents, if you've been to one before, 15 minutes for each of the men to talk about Cornerstone, the Bible, Jesus, however, they're going to twist and turn it, and then we're going to have a little round table after.

Shine Christian Academy is going to be in the house downstairs, the Moose Lodge, doing some activities for the kids, so families welcome. It doesn't cost you anything on the 28th to get into. want everybody to show up, allow the kids go have, you know, some fun down on stairs. Meanwhile, you get to sit and listen to the speakers.

It's free to attend. Donations accepted. Yeah, that's the 27th, 28th. Going to be an interesting, interesting, interesting, interesting weekend. The Deer and Steer Butchery. Well, it's 4-H season. They're open for booking and slaughters for 4-H beef along with people who, along with if anyone's interested in buying or selling half or quarters.

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growing food for their community and this great country. Well, I think that's got it. I think we got it all in the bag here today, folks. Shall we get on to that tale of the tape? He's a Croatian National, former hedge fund manager, author, and contributing editor at Zero Hedge. I'm talking about Alex Craneer.

So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. I just clicked record Alex while you're talking. I'm like, I should just click record when we started. I brought Alex on because I'm sitting here, you know, Saturday night here is, you know,

in Canada culture, Alex, Saturday night hockey, right? So everybody's, you know, Saturday night. UFC 300's going on. And then I'm watching the Iron Dome rattling off. against an Iranian attack and I'm watching this and I realize like there's more to it than that like you know I'd be a moron not to talk about um the fact that Israel attacked Iran first and and on and on it goes but I'm watching I'm like this is like this is this is really serious um I don't know I was talking with some different friends I was saying like I don't know

maybe I'm wrong um but this reminds me of I don't know in early days of Russia Ukraine when and they blew up the Nord Stream and a bunch of different things like that. We're like, we're like precariously close to having all out war. And maybe we've been out all war this entire time. I just, I looked at this new development. And I was like, you know, whether you love or hate Putin, I feel like he's shown a lot of restraint over and over again when the United States or Britain or the group of them have done really strange things

trying to go to him in to attacking NATO nations, right? And here, I don't think we, you know, Israel's basically said there, we will be attacking Iran, or at least that's what my eyes and ears here. I'm just kind of curious, like maybe I'm wrong on that. Well, yes, you're not wrong, but what has happened in the meantime is that Benjamin and Nahu had a conversation with Joe Biden, and Joe Biden persuaded him to, uh, to call off the attack. And then Olaf Schultz of Germany,

Emmanuel Macron of France, and Rishi Sunak in Britain, all asked Netanyahu not to escalate any further. And so I think that's an extremely interesting situation. For the time being, the Israelis have called off the attack. There might not be any further. escalation. And the reason why, to my mind, is because they got some good tuition from the Iranians. Namely, you know, the Iranians hit them in apparently a very sophisticated way.

They gave the, you know, they didn't intend to make this hugely damaging for the Israelis. So they gave a long pre-advice that the attack was coming. I think that they gave the Americans something like 70-plus hours notice that the attack was coming. That's how they knew. And then they launched this attack, I think primarily with the intention of sending a message. And the message was, we can really hurt you. And the way this message was delivered is that they sent something like 300 missiles. most of which were these cheap drones that took something like five or six hours to get from Iran to Israel because they fly very slowly.

And then they timed it in a way that the ballistic and the cruise missiles arrived about at the same time. And the cheap drones, a very large number of them, like 200 of them, drew to themselves the air defense missiles from me. Israel. These drones cost a couple of thousand bucks apiece, whereas every missile that the Israelis shot cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars or a million or more. And so apparently Iran spent about three million on this attack, and the Israelis spent more than a billion dollars on defending. And then some of the Israeli missiles were designed in a vision. very clever way and apparently neither the Americans nor the Israelis were aware of this. And what they did is they, you know, like they flew in and then as they entered the air defense

zone, they started shooting off these decoy flares, right? A large number of them that would attract air defense missile to themselves. And then the main warhead separated upon, in the last stage of the flight of the missile and the warhead apparently has its own acceleration booster rocket. So that, you know, like the air defenses went to shoot these flares and the drones. And the real deal just kind of separated and the last. The last stage of the attack accelerated, and apparently it cuts through Israeli Iron Dome,

and it cuts also through American air defense systems. And so the message was, stop this right now or else, you're sitting ducks. The real attack is going to be coming and it's going to be punishing. and all the American bases and Western NATO British bases in the region will become targets. And there's nothing you can do. You are sitting ducks. And so I think that this is what sobered up the Western leadership really quick.

And that's why they yanked Netanyahu's chained and told them, call it all off. We cannot win this. We're going to get hurt. And the consequences are going to be horrific, not only because, because we're going to get hurt in that region. But because Iran has all kinds of ways to hurt the West. Okay? If they close the Strait of Hormuz,

if the flow of oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is interrupted, we could see oil price at $200 a barrel. And then what happens? We get inflation, we get depression, What if we have a shortage of oil? What if we have our logistical systems grind to a halt as they did at the beginning of the Ukraine war, or maybe worse this time around? And then to top it all off, it's very clear that the Russians and the Chinese and the Iranians are coordinating their responses. And, you know, the West had no option but to back down and to call off their Rottweiler in the Middle East.

And that's what happens. So I think that for the time being, they do not have the answer and they have called off the escalation. Iranians clearly do not want to escalate either. So I think that maybe we've turned a corner. I hope so. Because the Israelis, once they sober up, they're going to see that they have literally no options but to turn the page and to make nice with their neighbors in the region

and to make nice with the Palestinians. It's going to take them a while to sober up, and the sobering up could be still bloody and it could include a large number of Israelis leaving Israel, but I think that for people who stay there and want to make it their home, they're going to have to make nice with their neighbors. You know, leave it to Alex to find a way to inject just maybe a smidge of hope. I mean, pretty dark days. Like some of those videos are like, holy Makinaw, we are precariously close. I'm glad

you've added in some knowledge that I didn't, well, I hadn't read about yet. And I find And I find that very fascinating because it seemed like this American government was willing to go to war at all costs. But the rest of the world has found another way to show them that maybe that isn't such a great idea. And I was listening to Alex Jones. You walked in on me while I had Alex Jones on. And him talking about the missiles as well and that they didn't know about it. That's very fascinating, you know, for this such a sophisticated defense system and to have the American. backing it and everything else to find a chink in the armor, so to speak, that gets to the

point where the Americans are like, oh, wait, maybe we don't want to go to war. Well, I think that the system was sophisticated 30 years ago, you know, it's not the latest technology today. You know, today the sophisticated air defense systems are what the Russians have. You know, the Americans haven't invested. They haven't advanced their development because, you know, as several observers have pointed out, the whole American defense industry is profit-driven. And, you know, in 30 years ago, they thought like, that's it. We're number one. Why try harder? We're the sole superpower in the world. You know, why spend money on stuff when we don't have to. Everybody's scared. And I remember already in 1991. I mean, it was published in

1991. I read it more recently. There were there were like papers coming out from the US army and some think tanks. They were basically giving the game away. They said like our hegemony in the Middle East depends on two levers. One of them is our allies by which they meant, you know, countries like Israel, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jordan, and so on. Number two is force projection, meaning, you know, we have these large aircraft carrier strike groups, and we have all these fancy planes and missiles on them. And so if any power in the region gets a little bit uppity, we just sent this whole thing and we scared the crap out of them.

And so everybody toes the line, and everybody bows down to the sheriff, right? Yeah, so, you know, today, in the age of hypersonic missiles that can strike with pinpoint accuracy, carrier strike groups are obsolete. They're essentially sitting duck, and they can be sunk very easily with, you know, I don't know about Iranian,

missile so much, but I know that a Zircon or a Kynjal can, in one strike, can cut an aircraft carrier in two. And the Russians throughout this war in Ukraine have demonstrated well enough that they have the capacity to target all of the American aircraft carrier strike groups all at once. So that projection of power can be lost. And then going back to the second level of power which the United States was exercising to maintain hegemony over the Middle East was the alliances.

And these alliances have largely come apart over the last 30 years. The Saudis are in the BRICS group. So is Egypt. Yemen is, is not an ally. Syria has not been subdued. Lebanon's not an ally exactly.

And so the whole both major levers of power that the United States used to keep control over the Middle East are basically gone. No good. And we can see that. You know, American ally Israel in what, five, six months has not been able to defeat Hamas. It has a much more powerful adversary to the North Hezbollah with whom it is, you know, trash talking a lot and saying,

we're going to attack, we're going to attack, we're going to attack, but they haven't attacked yet. And then, you know, the Americans, the French, the British, they haven't been able to subdue the hoodies who are, who have completely checkmated. them in the Red Sea and interrupted the flow of maritime traffic through the Red Sea. And the Americans have had to concede that they are unable to vanquish the Houthis. And we didn't even get to Iran, which is the big power in the region. You know, so you can't beat Hamas, you can't beat the Houthis. You can't dream about beating Hezbollah, but you want to go to war against Iran.

demented, that's madness. And I think that finally this missile strike by Iran over the weekend has managed to sober up enough people that, you know, they said, well, stop it. We're, we're going to commit suicide here. We can't win this one. And we have to get back to the drawing board and think up something else. And so sure, they're going to think up something else. they're going to maybe come up with some terror attacks in Syria, they're going to attack Lebanon maybe something, but it's all going to amount to inflicting pain for no strategic gain because strategically they've painted themselves into a corner

and they cannot win. That's that. So you think we're, I don't know, do you think we're closer to World War III today or further away? I think we're further away that we were before. for the Iranian attack. Because you know, one side might think that they want a war because they imagine that they can prevail.

And I think that they just learned that they cannot prevail. And so then, what do you do? You're going to get hurt and defeated. You might not want to. Well, you know, they're working on, Ukrainianizing Japan. You know, last week we had Kishida, the Prime Minister of Japan, visiting with Biden and Minimmy, Marcos Jr. of the Philippines.

And we're all talking war, war, war, China, China, China, China, you know. Like, they're all getting ready to, you know, pull the same nonsense as they did with Ukraine this time cast by Japan and the Philippines. But, you know, this is the same cast of characters that tried to subdue the Taliban in Afghanistan for 20 years at a cost of over a trillion dollars and failed. And now, you know, they haven't had enough. They just haven't had enough. They now don't want to take on China. They lost in Syria.

They lost in Ukraine. they lost in Afghanistan. They're losing practically every, they lost to the hooties. And now they want to take on China. How crazy is that? Well, it seems like their street credit around the world must be diminishing immensely. Like, I mean, they were once the biggest, the biggest, you know, like I wouldn't want to that person in the bar type thing.

And now when you put it that way, it just seems like they've lost a lot of what they personified over the last 50 years. Yeah, exactly. It's what they call the projection of power, you know, that you just, just your presence intimidates everybody into submission. Except I think that the experience of Syria and especially Ukraine has shown the NATO and the United States to be the paper tiger. I mean, you know, like you wouldn't want to invade the United States

because then you would get the full strength and power of the United States and the American people defending their homeland against invader. That's a different thing. But in a region several miles away where you have like, you know, why? Why are we fighting here? And then you have complicated logistics. And then you have this mass of material and troops that you have to bring there and feed them and provide healthcare and everything.

It's very complicated. It's very expensive. It's very difficult. And the way they did it so far was projection of power and getting their allies to actually fight the wars. And now that the alliances are kind of being redrawn, people are more interested in going with bricks, with Russia, with China. The Russians have better weaponry.

So, you know, the Saudis, the Turks, they want the S-400s. They want Russian air defense systems. They don't want the freaking patriots that don't work. And so everything is kind of changing. And I think that the Israel's miscalculation was that they went, you know, with this inertia of thinking, oh yeah, we're Israel. We're special. We cannot be defeated. And then we have the United States behind our backs and the United States is this, you know, invincible superpower.

or, you know, like thinking that might have been true 30 years ago, but it's no longer true. And so they went and they poked and poked and poked the Iranians until the Iranians responded. And then Iranians responding, responding changed everything all at once. You know, like it's like the bully, bullies and bullies and bullies. And then at one point gets a punch in the face. And he's like, oh, shit. This is not what I thought it was. I better tuck my tail between my legs and, you know, turn around and go.

And so I think there's going to be a lot of soul searching in Israel because the way they've been going was delusional, was absolutely delusional. They were on the way to national suicide. And it's just not just Alex Kraner telling you this. In 2012, Henry Kissinger said that 10 years from now, there will be no more Israel. So, you know, he was, the time frame wasn't correct, but, you know, Henry Kissinger will have known something

about the balance of power in the region to give such a categorical statement, and he gave it very categorically. He said, 10 years from now, so that's two years ago, there will be no more Israel. And I think that now we are at the juncture where there is a very real possibility that what he predicted may come to pass. And so Israelis have to probably turn around.

They have to reconsider what they've been doing and they have to change. Otherwise, they're going to run themselves off a cliff. And when you say run themselves off cliff, mean be destroyed by their neighbors, yes? Yes, probably. because, you know, you're fighting a war against Hamas and you can't win. And you're promising a war against Hezbollah, which you cannot win. I mean, you know, Israeli military and intelligence analysts themselves

have looked into this issue very carefully, and they presented a paper to the Israeli policymakers saying, that a war against Hezbollah would be the worst possible thing for Israelis to do. They know they're going to get their asses kicked. But the people in Netanyahu's cabinet, the political leadership, are blind zealots, dead set on some biblical messianic agenda. And I don't know if they imagine. that God will come down and help them or I don't know what the thinking is but they are

they appear very determined to do the actions that they should know will spell the end of their nation so why they would proceed that well you know thankfully this spat with Iran finally gave credibility to the many many analysts and military experts and military commanders in Israel who have been saying this for a long time. We can't be doing this. This is, you know, like, we're going to end up blowing ourselves up, except that we're being dismissed by the upper echelons. And now finally they've been redeemed.

You know, they were right. The idiots on top were wrong. And so I think there's going to have to be a mindset. change. How that mindset change is going to occur, I have no idea. Maybe there's going to be political changes. You know, I don't know, Netanyahu is probably finished, but I don't know that much will change with, even with Netanyahu gone. But, you know, there's probably going to have to be a period of Israeli sobering up. And the hysteria that has gripped them is going to have to loosen up and they're going to have to look at reality in the face and make some

changes. And I think that's going to mean that a lot of Israel is going to leave Israel and some of them are not going to leave. They're going to have to be a bit more conciliatory with their neighbors. And then hopefully their neighbors are not going to, you know, come down on them in a vengeful rage, but if they continue doing what they're doing now, then that red-hot, vengeful rage is going to come down on them like a ton of bricks. And, you know, I think at this moment, it's up to them probably, because if they, if they, if they relent, then I think much of the rest of the world will probably come to their aid and kind of try to, try to arrange a soft landing, as they like to city, you know, rather than a train wreck.

Curious, where you're at, you today living, like, are people at all concerned about this? Are they just going on about their life? Is this just another thing in the Middle East and it's not a big deal? Or is it different where you're sitting, Alex? The reason I ask is, like, here, sitting in Canada, you know, like, are people kind of paying attention? Yeah. but overall I would say I'm not running into anyone you know person after person asking did you see what happened did you see what's going on most people aren't clued in at all NHL playoffs are

coming up real fast and I would say most people are are paying attention to that like where you're sitting at are people at all concerned about what's happening over in the Middle East they are but I think I experienced the situation in a similar way as you do Namely, most of the people that I'm surrounded with are, you know, they get their information from the mainstream media, which means that they're clueless. And, well, you know, sorry to say it, but, you know, like the mainstream media are always throwing wool over everybody's eyes. And so, you know, they're trying to portray Iran as a real, real bad actor, and they're trying to portray Israel's defenses like having. want the day and how you know they're mischaracterizing the whole thing you know and so I I try to avoid discussions with other people locally I have discussions with people online you know on

Twitter and the social media because the the information flow is better it's more new ones there's there's there's both sides and so I think I experienced the events more in the same way that you do Then I do in, you know, like on the street, you know, walking down to a cafe and having a chat with an acquaintance about like, so what do you think? It's kind of frustrating because I don't, I prefer not to know what they think because I'm afraid I'm going to have to shoot myself in the face if I hear what they think. We're not the greatest party guests, are we Alex? No, but you know, like if you choose your party, if you choose your party is careful, then then they can be a lot of fun. Well, I should, I should point out that you're here back in Canada next weekend.

So April 26th, 27th, 28th. And I tell you what, that's going to be, that's going to be, there still is a couple tickets left. So if you're interested in that, go down on the show notes, you can see exactly what I mean. Click on it. If you want to come here, Alex talk. What did you think of the, just on a complete side note for a couple of seconds, maybe something a little lighter. What did you think of the schedule? Did you look at it for the 27th? Did you see what we were doing there? I glanced at the schedule and I will tell you what I think about it. Nothing at the moment because it's okay so here's where I'm at you know I moved out of the apartment where I lived for the past

five years on the second of April right and normally you know like it's it's a traumatic experience but basically what you do is you move all your shit from one place and you move it into the next place right but I had a trip during March and I kind of arrived to Monaco two weeks before the move and in those two weeks the apartment where I was moving to was yanked off the market And then I had to urgently find the next one. So I found one, plan B. And then that one became unavailable literally four days before my move. So I moved out, but I never moved in anywhere.

So I'm like literally homeless now. And so now I'm my all my days are like, I have my kids, I have my job. and now I have a lot of extra errands and I have to find the next place to live because I'm going to Canada and then after Canada I'm going to Thailand so I'm not going to be here another two weeks and meanwhile all my shit's sitting in storage somewhere

and so it's like it's so much stuff going on nonstop on a daily basis that I can't take information overload so I looked at your I looked at your schedule corresponds broadly to what I expect and all the information, all the extra details are information overload. I can't take it.

Well, A, I'm sorry. I shouldn't laugh that you're homeless. That sucks. I hope you find something fast. I'm comfortable, you know, like I'm in a temporary, I'm in a temporary lodging courtesy of a friend. But I have to find a place to live, right? I can't. It's an errand that just has to be completed, right? So it's a lot. A lot is happening. And, you know, like my trip to Lloydminster and my trip to Thailand after that,

we planned all that before I even knew that I had to be moving. And I didn't even know at that time. So I thought like, oh, easy, peasy, you know, like, it's going to be fun. And then, you know, like, when you're done with the trips, you go home, except like this time I'm going to be done with the trips. And I'm going to think like, oh, shit, I have to move. And anyway, don't feel bad about me. This is all cool. Part of life, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I'm going to be telling my grandkids one day.

But at the moment, I just, you know, the long story short is I have to, I have to, um, manage the information overload. Fair. That's fair. Well, what, what, what, what time is it there right now? Right now, it's three minutes to 10 p.m. It's the evening. Fair. Well, I don't want to hold you up too long. I wanted to get in, get out, let you get back on with your night. And I don't want to keep you all day unless you're like, oh, no, I got plenty of time.

But if you're like, you know what, it's late. I'm living in a buddy's place. I'm like, I appreciate you, you hopping on abruptly. This was rather abrupt. I just wanted to. Yeah, this is a short notice. No, but I'm, I'm good. We can, we can, we can do another half hour. Sure. Okay. Well, then. Well, then the thing I'm curious about is from the West. You know, and once again, I haven't studied the Middle East since I was in college. And we did a course on the Middle East trying to like break down. And you can imagine what that was like. The thing I never hear about is Iran, right?

You mentioned they're like one of the superpowers over in that area, right? Like don't mess with Iran. That's a terrible idea. But, you know, until you started talking about it, I guess Iran goes through my brain. in a year zero, right? I don't think about anything over there until you start talking about it. I'm like, huh, what is it about Iran? Like, is it oil? Is it a whole bunch of different things? Is it a fact it's kind of like centered in the middle of, you know, a whole bunch of countries? Like what, what is it about Iran? And then what do they have going for them that makes them that,

I don't know, dangerous at the party, if you would? Okay, so let's, before I get to Iran, let's move west a little bit, you know, eastern Mediterranean. So where you have Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, the Suez Canal, and all of that. That, for the last 3,000 years or so, see you there where you have Cyprus and Lebanon and Syria, for the last 3,000 years, that has been a region of huge. importance because it is where the trade between east and west has flown. So today we had the suit, we have the Suez Cana, but before, you know, there used to be trade coming together.

First of all, Egypt used to be enormously wealthy. Then you had Arab traders who were trading with India, bringing stuff back and forth, and it went through the to the valley of Tigris and Euphrates across Syria, Aleppo, Damascus, to the Mediterranean. And then from there, you know, the European traders, Italians, Greeks, Jews, Phoenicians, Venetians, the Ottomans, they controlled the trade between East and West, going all the way up to England and Scandinavian countries. So this was always an enormously rich region.

But the picture that you're showing now is that region is part of, you know, like you could almost draw a star across that region and hit all five of the seas that are right there in that region. So you have the Caspian Sea to the east. You have the Black Sea to the northwest. You have the Mediterranean. And then you have the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. And there in between you have squeezed these two, this massive fertile valley of Euphrates and Tigris. And you have kind of, it's almost like a massive trade hub. And then, you know, 20th century turns out it's also enormously resource rich, not only agriculturally, but also in terms of energy.

energy reserves. And so everybody wants to control that region. And Iran there is the big power with, as they like to say, escalatory dominance. And Iran is, you know, it used to be called Persia. It's an empire that goes back 3,000 years. It's a very old civilization. And let's say that the western influence there that goes back to let's say the 19th century when the British the British Empire was dominant in the region they are they are relatively recent intruders and you know the United States took over where the British Empire left left out. But the strategy is the same, you know, dominating the region to have control over the resources to be turned into, you know, money good collateral for the Western banking establishment

so that all those resources can be extracted by our corporations who are clients to our banks and whose loans are assets on our banking groups balance sheets. As far as everybody else, is concerned, it's all the same. Whether I buy oil from Iranians or whether I buy it from Iraqis or Russians or Saudis, I have to pay it anyway. It doesn't make a difference to me. It makes it all the difference to the bankers, and this is why the bankers are the only group in Western society who have life or death concern with who controls the collateral. all. And so what's happening now is that the Western powers are getting gradually squeezed from out of this region. The security architecture is shifting in favor of Iran as part of the Shanghai

Cooperation Organization. Iran is closely cooperating with the Russians and the Chinese. and they had decades to prepare for what happened now, you know, because they fought the war against Iraq, so they have some actual experience fighting and winning wars. They understand the situation in their region, and they have prepared to defend and to inflict pain on whoever attacks them, meaning probably United States or NATO or any of their allies. And they have many, many ways, you know, to respond and to inflict their pain.

So, you know, for Western powers, right now there's no options but to learn to reckon with that. How they will do? I don't know. But, you know, I think that the days of European powers dominating the Middle East, Those days are over. And, you know, we're going to have to either learn to deal with other nations on a fair basis, peer-to-peer, with respect and due consideration for their concerns, or are we going to get squeezed out and left outside in the cold? So I don't know if that answers the questions that you asked,

but this is the significance of that region. It's not just oil in the last 100 years. It's been practically the center of the world for millennia and fought over. The Crusaders went there not to bring freedom and democracy into Jerusalem. They went there because they wanted to control the trade between East and West. And then they sacked the Byzantium because the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, did control that trade and grew enormously wealthy from controlling that trade. And then, you know, European civilization rose out of the dark ages. Only after they sack the Byzantium, they sacked Constantinople, and plundered all of its gold.

And then finally there was a little bit of credit, you know, for the Italian bankers to get some business going, extend credit. And, you know, that's when that's when the Renaissance started to take over. And that's, you know, like, I frankly, I have very little detailed history on this. But I think that this is also what happened in the biblical times, in the times of Jesus Christ. you know, Judea was probably also originally a very wealthy kingdom with, you know, Jewish traders probably transacting business also between Egypt and the Arab nations and the East and West and so forth. And then, you know, the Romans came there, installed King Zelensky, sorry, King Herod. and he started squeezing his own people until a rebellion

emerged which was crushed in a very bloody way but I think that the you know like we get the history kind of biased in the sense that we're giving the impression that this was this conflict between Romans and the Jews because the Jews are monotheistic and the Romans had many gods

and then, you know, like they all went crazy and started killing each other because they were so violent and irrational. But in fact, it always had to do with control of trade and control of the flows of wealth, which at the time was gold and silver. And then it's also well known that Roman bankers extended very large loans to different, you know, kings and sovereigns around the region and then they exacted tribute or payment of their of the repayment of their loans with interest and they would on the on the regular they would send their legions to enforce the repayment of those debts and you know as we know king herod had these megalomaniacal projects real estate you know construction. He was building a whole port city. He was building temples and palaces everywhere.

He was doing it on money borrowed from the Romans and he had to pay it back. So how was he how was he paying it back by taxing the Jews, the Jewish people, his own people, right? And that's why you know you had this oppression going on and why the Romans had to have their allegiance there to, you know, help Herod keep the Jews from getting too opity against him. And, you know, same story today, you know, why you have American military in Israel, why you have the American military in CIA and Native military in Ukraine. And it's not about freedom. It's not about democracy.

It's not about monotheism, politicism. none of that it's always about resources trade wealth credit collateral and things like this well i tell you i go i sit there and i look at what is happening on the other side of the world you know and i always forget and it's probably just a simple you know overlook of like how much history is there right how much like I just I even bring the map back up Alex here and it just it not that it shocks me because I obviously know what the Middle East like I've I've I've taken classes on it but you just you just look at how many countries are stacked side by side by side by side by side and and then you know like Israel and there right there like you just got to like look at all the

stuff going on right and you hear about it on the news you You see it on Twitter all the time, and I just forget, or maybe overlook is the better, better term about how much history is there and how much overlap, and then what that region really means to the rest of the world. You know, sitting up in the middle of Alberta, you know, you sometimes can forget that, just how important or a key of a region that really is. and then, you know, as time goes on, you know, going back to Iran, you know, you think they've seen different powers come in over and over and over again. And I would think, you know, if I'm an older man or or maybe my dad's generation or his dad's generation, they just tell the stories.

Oh, yeah, this is, this is the new, yeah, this is the new empire that's come in. And, you know, they're doing their thing and we just got to wait it out because they're eventually going to falter. will stand up or I don't know how they say it. But to me, if you've been around that long and you've been under how many different empires, I assume there's some tradition and some stories passed down by the people that live there. Yeah, I think that there's, you know, there's a certain culture deeply rooted within the souls of the people, of the individuals who live there. And usually, you know, empires when they, when they conquer and subject.

some country. They try to erase all that, but it doesn't work. You know, people always kind of revert to their own roots. And they, you know, the biggest example of this was the Soviet Union. Because, you know, when the Soviets took over Russia after a thousand years of a Tsarist regime in 1917, they tried to do the great reset. You know, they tried to turn everything upside down, you know, do away with religious. they tried to do away with

distinctions between men and women. They try to completely re-engineered society. It just didn't work. It lasted 70 years. And in spite of the fact that they essentially enslaved a lot of people and they killed a lot of people, you know, the people slowly went back to their roots and you can't take that out.

So, you know, these undying delusions of grandeur of Western powers who think that somehow it's theirs to dominate other nations, it's only creating wars, bloodshed, and ultimately they're going to be defeated. All the empires throughout history ultimately collect. and got relegated to minor powers. And, you know, if you don't reverse course, as the Western Roman Empire didn't reverse course, for example,

you run yourself off the cliff and you end up living in the Dark Ages. And, you know, life in the Dark Ages in the Western Roman Empire, meaning, you know, Italian Peninsula and the surroundings there westward, word is that they didn't even, you know, like there wasn't even production of simple things. There was, you know, like production of pottery and nails died out. All the markets died out. There was no coinage. It was really back to the, to the, almost to the stone age again until, you know, they arranged

crusades and sat Constantinople and then they brought, you know, a new, and they kick started everything. with plundered gold. But this is what you risk. You risk to really plunge your societies into into dark ages. So we have to reverse course. And we can because, you know, as far as everybody else is concerned, it would be much better if we traded with the rest of the world. You know, the, the prosperity in the Eastern Bloc is rising. You know, the Chinese over the last 40 years, they raised 850 million people out of poverty. There's estimates by, I don't know, like World Bank or somebody like that, IMF, that every year a new hundred and some million new consumers come on to the global markets.

What that means is like, you know, like the GDP per capita reaches above some threshold, whether it's like $5,000 a year or something like that, and then these people are considered now affluent consumers, which means in normal language is they have money to spend. So if you're like an entrepreneur sitting anywhere in Canada, in the United States, in Western Europe, whatever, and you have something to sell, wouldn't you rather think of these people as your potential market,

if you have like a widget that you could ship to them, and sell it and build bridges of business cooperation and development with them. Rather than... Running barges into every bridge and blowing them up. Exactly. And building military bases to keep them all subjugated. And, you know, that's again, you know, like we always go back to that same old rap about the clash between two systems of governance, because the system of governance that is imposed on the Western powers by default

and has been for centuries is we are the dominant power, we dictate the terms of everything, everybody else, submit, prostrate yourself, and do as we tell you. And so you have this age of permanent warfare, of military industrial complexes, which are completely out of control. And it's us doing it, you know? Like we can talk about our values and freedom and democracy and human rights in the West and blah, blah, blah. And we can lament these, you know, tyrannies and autocracies in the East and the CPC, no, CCP, you know, like bitch and moan about the Chinese Communist parties and this and that. But we are the ones who are always at war. You know, make a list of how many countries, China.

invaded over the last 100 years and then make a list of how many the United States invaded and make a list of how many Great Britain invaded. Well, British list and the American list are very long. Chinese list is very small. I think two nations, Vietnam and Laos maybe. You know, and that was, or maybe Korea, I forget. That was because the wars were started by somebody else in that region. So it was a reaction. Same with Russia, you know. Russia invaded, well, that was Soviet Union. They invaded Afghanistan back in the day in the 1980s.

Current wars that Russia is waging are all reactions to action by Western powers, you know, intervention in Georgia, intervention in Ukraine, intervention in Syria. But, you know, the world would prefer to be left alone. And there would be a hell of a lot less war if we did. did leave the rest of the world alone, focused on our business, built things, produced things, and traded with the rest of the world. Everybody would be better off. The only people who wouldn't be better off would be the banking cartel.

Well, Alex, I appreciate you hopping on and doing this. If you got five minutes for me, I'm going to slide us over to Substack, folks. I have a question for Alex that I've been thinking on. Me and the book club have been talking about. So I'm curious his thoughts, but we're going to. and do it over on substack. So if you want to cop over, we'll take a brief break. And then one last question here with Alex. We'll see what his thoughts are.