The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Israel’s Uncertain Endgame in Iran || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

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?Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/israels-uncertain-endgame-in-iran

Hey all, Peter Zion 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 ore, 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 ruggedize that system so it can survive and 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, we're to kick it tomorrow with either because he's older than dust or because bomb drops on his head, that doesn't remove the regime. There are over 15,000 moas 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 chains that are worthy of the term in 6,000 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 carriers stationed in the Persian Gulf, some are on the way. At 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 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.