WEBVTT - Lots More with Gregory Brew 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.440 I like to remain you know, calm and collected during 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:04.280 times of crisis. 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.160 That seems to be a very rare trait, a very 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:08.440 rare trait for anyone. 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:14.040 Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's it's tough when things 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.400 are happening so quickly. Yes, and when something like this 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:20.600 happens that really nobody saw coming. Was the thing. I mean, 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.160 we were having meetings. I was having meetings the week 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.319 before the Hamas attack on Israel where the question of 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:28.640 sort of Middle East tensions or Middle East crisis would 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:30.680 come up, and the general feeling was that, like, no, 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:34.880 things look pretty quiet. We've got Saudi is Iran normalization. 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.320 You know, oil seems to be flowing, although there's always 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.800 the US OPEC problems. You have Saudi's and israelis kind 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.920 of slowly moving towards normalization. Things seems pretty quiet, and 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.280 then bam, something huge happens that nobody really anticipated. 0:00:51.960 --> 0:01:01.200 I did a deadlift one, okay, uh barges. This isn't special, except. 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.480 I've decided I'm going to base my entire personality going 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.759 forward on campaigning for a strategic pork reserve in the US. 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:08.560 Where's the best with imposta? 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:11.319 These are the important question, is it robots taking over 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:11.959 the world. No. 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.880 I think that like in a couple of years, the 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.160 AI will do a really good job of making the 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:20.640 odd launch podcast and people today, I don't really need 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:22.320 to listen to Joe and Tracy anymore. 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.640 We do have the perfect. 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:29.760 Well in the meantime, this is lots more. 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.199 A weekly chat about whatever is on our minds. 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:37.760 This is one of those episodes where I feel like 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.280 we need to get the recording date right at the top, 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:44.959 which is October eighteenth, because things are moving so quickly 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:48.560 and we are going to be discussing the Israel Hamas conflict, 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:51.320 and there's just new headlines every hour, it feels like. 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.480 So we are here in the studio with Gregory brew 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:57.400 he is an analyst at the Eurasia Group. We've had 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.840 him on the podcast before. We talked about Guyana last 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:02.360 time we did Yeah, but. 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:03.680 That was a happier story. 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.680 I feel, yes, the country with the fastest growing oil, 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.399 but the current crisis that we're seeing, the war that's 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:14.160 going on. This is right in your wheelhouse because it's 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.519 geopolitical and your background other than studying oil, which is 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:18.760 what we talked to you about last time, in the 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.360 history of oil. You have a expert on the history 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:22.840 of Iran as well, so Tuck. 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.760 Yeah, no, Yeah, It unfortunately happens to combine the two 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:28.799 things that I've done the most work on, and whenever 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:32.680 that happens, it generally doesn't tend to bode very well 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:36.440 because it means there's you know, crises, there's disruptions, there's tensions, 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.560 and yeah, I mean the crisis right now does seem 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.720 to be contained to Israel and the violence in Gaza, 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:45.240 but everyone is concerned about how this could spill over 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.639 into oil. You saw a very surprising reaction this morning 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:52.240 from Iran's foreign minister making a wild claim about an 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:56.280 oil and bargo on Israel, suddenly sending oil prices up surprisingly. 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.239 So I think there's a lot of I think there's jumpiness. 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:02.760 I think there's concerns, broadly speaking, that this crisis could 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:04.720 eventually spill over and start affecting oil. 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.560 Wait, you said it was kind of a wild threat. 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.880 Why And also how crazy is it that we're talking 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:15.040 about an oil embargo, like exactly fifty years after the 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:19.480 Arab oil embargo that like contributed to nineteen seventies inflation. 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:21.840 I find that mind blowing like almost to the day. 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:25.040 Right, Yeah, I mean history does seem to be rhyming, right. 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.440 I mean the attack, the Hamas attack happened exactly fifty 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:29.799 years and one day. 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:31.280 After the outbreak of. 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:35.000 The Omkapur War in nineteen seventy three, so obvious parallels 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:37.160 and I think so yeah, turning things back a bit, 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:41.440 you know, Iran's foreign minister, who's currently in Saudi Arabia 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:43.840 of all places, made kind of a wild claim in 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:45.800 front of press. He said Iran was going to call 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.480 on all Muslim countries, including countries like Saudi Arabia and 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.840 the UAE and Kuwait, to embargo oil shipments to Israel, 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.600 very clearly trying to replicate what happened in nineteen seventy three, 0:03:57.680 --> 0:03:59.760 or at least a version of it. And the reason 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:01.720 why it strikes me and I think a lot of 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.600 other analysts who watch Iran and oil closely, why it 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:06.640 strikes me as kind of a wild claim is that, 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.520 first of all, Iran doesn't sell any oil to Israel. 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:14.160 Iran and Israel are antagonists, they're competitors, you know, and honestly, 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:16.719 not many other Middle East countries sell oil to Israel 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.000 either or at least what oil that they do sell. 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:22.760 It's a fairly small amount, and there really isn't any 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:26.880 appetite i think, within OPEC or the broader Middle East 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:30.680 for another nineteen seventy three, certainly not for another embargo. 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.040 So I saw those comments, and also, it needs to 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.240 be said, Iranian officials, including the Foreign Minister Supreme Leader 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.080 Ali Kramene, they've been talking a lot of tough talk 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.080 over the last couple of days about how this crisis 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:45.560 could escalate, about how Iran might have to get involved. 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.000 So this kind of fits within that broader sort of 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:50.799 rhetorical campaign that Iran's been running of the last couple 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:53.760 of days, that they haven't really followed through with in 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:56.200 terms of direct action. So I saw the comments and 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.000 I thought like, well, Iran's talking tough, there's not going 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.000 to be an embargo, but markets seems to react, right. 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.360 Brent shot up from ninety one fifty to ninety two 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:06.919 to fifty. It's come back down since then, but clearly 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.360 there's there's wariness and jumpiness out there about how this 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:12.719 crisis could start affecting the broader market. 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.839 To reiterate for people listening, we're recording this on the eighteenth, 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.400 and so, you know, who knows what will happen in 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.960 this war, this crisis by the time people are listening 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:32.760 to it. But this is why, you know, the oil 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:36.720 perspective is obviously one that we're particularly interested. Brent is 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.839 still below where it was like at the end of September. 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.120 I mean, yeah, it's been a pickup in oil prices. 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:45.800 I mean, first of all, could it be that the 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:50.159 concern is not so much embargo, but that the more 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:54.400 the rhetoric gets tightened up and perhaps something where the 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.279 you know, sort of broadening out of the war itself. 0:05:57.600 --> 0:05:58.960 I know, there was a lot of talk about the 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:02.960 Biden administration having been particularly rigorous about sanctions enforcement. You 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:04.600 to listen what's going on with. 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:07.040 The Yeah, totally so, I think, you know, as soon 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:10.080 as the attack happened and this crisis started growing and 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.719 started taking on the proportions that it has, the immediate 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.040 thought was how was Iran involved? How will the US 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.760 and Israel respond? Right, Iran backs Hamas has for years. 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:21.960 It's a major supporter of Hamas. It supplies it with 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.400 weapons and funding and training. There still isn't any clear 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.239 answer as to whether Iran was involved in the attack, 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.040 and Iran has, as I mentioned, it's been talking tough, 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.560 but it really hasn't been taking a direct role. But 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.800 the bigger concern is, yes, will the US and Israel 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.720 decide to retaliate against Iran for its support for Hamas 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.320 And one of the major vectors that has been speculated 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.120 on or discussed is this question of will the US 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.160 titan restrictions on Iran's oil exports. It's been a big 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.479 story this year, right the recovery of Iran as a 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:56.920 major oil exporter. Exports were you know, around seven hundred 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.200 thousand barrels a day last year. They're now in the 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.559 range of one point five one point six million barrels 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:03.600 a day today. Yeah, I mean, and Iran is still 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.760 technically under sanction, right, so there's been a lot of 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.680 discussion of has the US eased off sanctions is as 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:11.840 part of a bigger deal between the US and Iran? 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:14.520 And now that this crisis has broken out, will the 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.760 US respond by tightening sanctions? And to me, it's a 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:22.200 lot more complicated than just you know, President Biden having 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.480 a big button on his desk sanctions, no sanctions, and 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:27.520 then pushing it and suddenly Iran oil exports fall. Like 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.560 the range of action that the US could take to 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:33.560 cut off the flow of oil, It's not quite as 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.520 simple as just adding new sanctions to Iran. Iran is 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.440 already under heavy, heavy sanctions. It's also a question of, 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:41.640 you know, if the US tries to do that, how 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.960 will that affect the broader market? How will that affect prices? 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.640 It'll certainly send prices up, and also how will it 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.360 affect the one country who is taking almost all of 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:51.600 Iran's oil China? 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:53.000 Right, we talk. 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:56.920 About have sanctions been lowered or reduced? Not really. What's 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:00.200 been happening is that China and small Chinese refiners have 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.880 been willing to take more and more Iranian oil at 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.280 low prices. Right, Iran is putting a big discount on 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:10.360 its crude, and they're taking this oil through somewhat shady means. 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.320 There's ship to ship transfers, the oil is being disguised 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.720 in Chinese customs data. China still technically doesn't take any 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:20.480 Iranian oil. It all gets redirected through other venues. So 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:22.480 there's a lot of shadiness to this oil trade, which 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:25.640 makes imposing sanctions by the US a lot harder. But 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.080 if you're cutting off the supply of oil to China, 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.320 which is what tougher sanctions enforcement would do. The Chinese 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:34.920 are bound to respond, right, They're not going to like that, 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:39.160 and I think the Biden administration is wary of provoking China. 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.080 And anything you do to disrupt Iran's oil exports is 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:43.719 going to have an impact on the broader market and 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.400 it's going to send oil prices up, and that's also 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:48.720 something that the Biden administration doesn't really want to do. 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:52.959 So you have operational constraints on how sanctions would even work. 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:58.120 You have provoking the Chinese, you have potentially provoking the Iranians, 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:00.560 and everything that you do is going to increase the 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:02.880 price of oil, something that this administration has really been 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.480 tried to trying to avoid. So I think it's in 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:09.080 the conversation right, tougher sanctions on Iranian and oil exports. 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:11.600 I still think the risk is fairly limited, and I 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.640 think if the US were to consider doing it, it 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.560 would be deterred by some of these more negative knock 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:18.160 on effects. 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:22.520 Yeah, what kind of response could you expect from opek here, 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.000 because like it feels like there's been a lot of 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.600 I mean, there's always internal drama at OPEK, but it 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.480 feels like there's been even more recently with regards to 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:36.000 you know, output and slack, extra capacity and things like that. 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.600 But it's such a disparate group, like in any case, 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.280 do you get a sense of like what they might 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:42.880 do here? 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:45.880 Yeah, I mean, that's a really it's an interesting question 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:50.200 because of course OPEC's been pursuing you know, supply management, 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:54.040 market management. They've been maintaining their cuts. The Saudia's have 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.560 been adding additional voluntary cuts to try to push prices upward. 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.520 And you know, curiously enough, this has been happening while 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.079 Iran has been increasing its exports, and it's also been 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:09.440 happening while Saudi and Iran pursue normalization. So there's you know, 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:11.800 there seems to be some cross purposes here. There does 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.320 seem to be a certain paradox and how the Saudis 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:18.080 particularly are approaching managing this market. But in terms of 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.079 what OPEK might do if the US suddenly cracked down 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:23.600 in Iran in a way that would really reduce the 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.959 flow right in a way that would create physical a 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:31.199 change in the physical market to fundamentals, I don't know 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.400 if OPEK or the Saudis would respond immediately because, as 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:36.280 I said, anything that the US would do would send 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:38.679 prices higher, and that's exactly what the Saudis want, right, 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.400 They want a higher price floor. They want to rise 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:43.760 prices maybe into the nineties, maybe close to one hundred. 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.400 So initially I don't think they would do a whole lot, right. 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.760 It feels like in the market there's still an assumption that, 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.920 like well, OPEC could ramp up capacity if it needed to, 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:56.240 But like to your point, Gragle, I don'uld see why 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.559 they would want to in that scenario. 0:10:58.880 --> 0:10:59.559 Yeah. 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:00.480 Yeah. 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.400 Prior to the attack by Hamas, as you mentioned, one 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.600 of the big stories had been the sort of loosening 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.240 in some sense of the physical market for Ronnie and 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:12.400 all the other I think it was a headline the 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:13.920 day before the attack. I think it was from the 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.680 Wall Street Journal about Saudi talking about maybe lifting its 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.960 production as part of an Israel normalism. Yeah. Yeah, you 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:26.480 had a very strong condemnation from the Kingdom of Saudi 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:30.120 Arabia towards Israel about the bombing at the hospital, which, 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:32.960 of course people don't really know what happened, but obviously 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.920 the public stance from Saudi and other golf countries is 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:38.400 pretty strong. What is Saudi's position here, How does it 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:41.319 affect where it was going with its talks on Israel 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:41.880 and so forth. 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:44.800 Yeah, I mean, you have to remember, even though we've 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:48.080 seen a lot over the last year or so on 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.080 Saudi Israel normalization, and even with the you know, the 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.199 so called Abraham Accords came together at the end of 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.520 the Trump administration, right, Israel normalizing with a number of 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:00.400 Arab states, you have to remember that formal relation between 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.079 Israel and the rest of the Middle East or specifically 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.800 the Arab world is still a very touchy, complicated issue. 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:11.360 There's still a great deal of history of sentiment that 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:16.160 Arab leaders, specifically, particularly in conservative Arab states like Saudi Arabia, 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:18.840 they have to be sort of wary of managing. And 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:21.679 I think the Saudi approach to this crisis has been 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:22.880 trying to thread that needle. 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:23.120 Right. 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:27.840 You've seen Saudi condemnations of Israeli actions in Gaza, You've 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:31.000 seen the Saudis, I mean MBS Muhammad bin Salman, the 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:33.160 Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He took a phone call 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.480 with President Raisi of Iran last week, the first time 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:38.959 they ever spoke right, and he did that in the 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.680 context of this crisis. So Saudi Arabia has been trying 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.800 to sort of maintain a middle line of not appearing 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:47.800 too friendly with Israel while also I think largely staying 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:49.839 on the sidelines of the crisis. Now, what does that 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:53.600 mean for this Israeli Saudi normalization. You mentioned the peace 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:55.599 that came out right before the crisis. It kind of 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:59.640 got buried this news that Saudi Arabia was opening up 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:01.840 a little bit to this idea that it would try 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:05.160 to lower oil prices as part of this grand bargain 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:07.360 with the US and Israel. That news came out, it 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.120 was greeted with a certain amount of skepticism because this 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.199 generally speaking, that wouldn't really align up with how the 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:16.040 Saudis have been trying to manage markets. But it did 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.600 suggest that there was progress on this deal. Now, where's 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.920 the deal now? Given the crisis is happening, the crisis 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.439 is escalating, I would say that it's on ice, but 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:31.079 it's not necessarily dead. I think the Saudi government has 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:35.440 to take the line that it's taken for political concerns, 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:39.560 for domestic concerns. It's concerned about regional stability. But in private, 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:41.679 I would imagine that there is still quite a lot 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:45.679 of interest from MBS in this deal because remember what 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.560 were the terms of the deal being discussed. Saudi Arabia 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.040 would get a security guarantee from the United States, it 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:55.640 would get US support for a civilian nuclear program. Israel 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.280 and Saudi Arabia would form a sort of a United 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:01.240 security front to contain Aron. These are all things that 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.679 Saudi Arabia NBS is interested in getting. I think he's 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:08.040 still interested in getting them now. He just maybe isn't 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.800 willing to talk about them publicly given the crisis that's happening. 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:13.840 So I think the deal, Yeah, the deal is on ice, 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:16.719 but it's not dead. It will take some time to 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:18.959 revive it though. I mean, like this crisis could go 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.040 on for weeks, it could go on for months. The 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:23.560 worst things get in Gaza, the harder it will be 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:27.040 for governments like Saudi Arabia to look friendly with Israel. 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:30.440 And that all works against a deal in the short term. 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:32.600 But I wouldn't say that it's dead. I mean NBS 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:34.440 is going to be in charge in Saudi Arabia for 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:36.760 a long time. He can afford to wait for this 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.360 crisis to subside or potentially even blow over, and revisit 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:42.840 a deal with Israel at some point in the future. 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:44.240 But I don't think we're going to see much talk 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:45.240 about it anytime soon. 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.280 I have a q slightly off topic, but not really 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.880 your research on Iran. I'm assuming you never actually got 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.680 to go to the country given existing sanctions, but I'm 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.680 just curious, like what the actual process was like of 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:17.160 gathering that information, and like did you travel, did you 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.360 talk to people on the ground, that sort of a shing. 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.800 I love these kinds of questions because it reminds me of, 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:25.800 you know, being a historian, which is my training. Before 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:27.320 I came to Yourrasier group, I was at Yale. I 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:29.840 was mostly working on my next book, so I wasn't 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:32.320 able to go to Iran. That's right. I'm an American national, 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:34.320 and at the time that I was doing my research, 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.240 this was twenty seventeen or so, it was dangerous. I 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.080 think for researchers who were Americans to go to Iran, 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:42.200 you ran the risk of physical harm, you ran the 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:44.280 risk of arrest. There have been Americans who have gone 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.080 to Iran to do historical research who have been arrested 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:49.800 and have remained in prison for years. I mean what 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:52.160 we just saw the recent prisoner exchange between the United 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:54.800 States and Iran. Some of those individuals, none of them 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:56.720 were historians, but they had some of them had been 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.360 held in prison for nearly ten years for really no reason. 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:01.840 So it wasn't possible for me to go to Iran 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.280 to do research. But that being said, I was doing 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:06.640 research on the fifties and sixties, you know, the Cold War, 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:11.080 and there's actually quite a lot of information of documentary 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:15.160 evidence in Farsi, in Persian that's available in the US 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:17.240 in Europe. A lot of it is in the form 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:20.560 of memoirs or interviews, but there are sort of collections 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:22.720 of documents that you can find that have been published. 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.520 So I, you know, writing the book that I wrote, 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.440 which was mostly about oil the Cold War US Iranian relations, 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:30.360 I tried to use as many of those sources as 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:33.600 I could, right, I really really strove to incorporate an 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:36.560 Iranian perspective as much as I could, because I thought 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:39.000 that perspective was important. Even if I wasn't able to 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:41.360 go to Iran and do research there, I still felt that, 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:43.720 you know, I couldn't write just another book about the 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.160 US and oil I had to incorporate to the Iranians. 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:48.160 So what is your forthcoming book. 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.560 Well, it's very much in progress, Joe. But what I'm 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:54.560 going to try to do, so my last book was 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:56.960 about the US and Iran specifically in the Cold War. 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.200 I wrote another I co wrote another book about the 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.600 nineteen fifty three coup in Iran, which also celebrated an 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:05.840 anniversary this year. But my next book is going to 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.600 be about oil and the US more broadly in the 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.840 twentieth century. What I'd really like to do is examine 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:14.720 how oil has helped sort of form the foundation for 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.440 American power in the twentieth century, and how the oil 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:21.680 industry companies like Exon Mobil, but also smaller companies that 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:24.240 are operating in Texas and other places, how they served 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.840 as tools of US foreign policy and formed a part 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:30.480 of the US conception of national security. So oil national 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:32.960 security in the twentieth century is kind of the broad focus, 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.080 but it's still, you know, in the early stages. So 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:37.120 I'll let you know what I make more progress. 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.640 All right, Well, we'll be back on for that, yeah, 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:43.000 I hope. So, speaking of going back to the market, reaction. 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:46.040 There's like a couple interesting things. I mean, I'm in 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:48.800 a way, I've been surprised that, you know, you expressed 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:51.719 surprise oil popped on these headlines which you didn't think 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:53.919 had much teeth to them. In general, though, I've been 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:58.200 surprised Tracy at like most markets for the last you know, 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:03.040 ten days lighter than I might have expected overall, across oil, 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.800 across raids, across stocks, which are more or less flat 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.600 or actually slightly up over the last two weeks. Is 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.680 not what I would have guess, given the intensity of 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:13.880 the headlines and the just uncertainty of world. 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:15.600 This is going now, I know what you mean. Although 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:18.119 I do think today, hold on, I'm just looking at this. 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:20.879 It looks like today is like kind of the first 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.120 day where we've seen a significant pop in gold, which 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:29.119 is like a classic yes war reaction, asset flight to 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:31.640 safe haven kind of thing. True, So that's interesting to see. 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:36.000 It does feel like today with that explosion, the deadly 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.359 explosion at that hospital, it feels like things have like 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:44.000 shifted a little bit, even though there's no certainty about 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:45.680 what exactly just happened. 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.560 Yeah, we're still trying to piece together precisely what happened right, 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:51.720 whether it was a rocket misfire, whether it was something 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:54.680 caused from the Israeli side, something caused from Hamas or 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:56.879 another group active in Gaza. I think the evidence is 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.440 still kind of coming together, but there was an immediate 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:03.760 reaction to the explosion across the Arab world. There were 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:07.560 spontaneous protests in places like Jordan, in the West Bank, 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.840 even in Iran, where the struggle in Palistine or the 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.480 issue of the Palestinian people is followed quite closely. And 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:18.000 you saw, as Joe mentioned, quite quick condemnations of the 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.440 Israeli action from governments across the region. 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.240 And to some extent that's for a domestic audience that 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.679 the public protests and then the leadership feels it has 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:29.520 to take. 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:31.960 Us oide totally. A lot of it is out of 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.280 concern for how the public, how the so called Arab 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:38.640 street is, how it's referred to, how the public will 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:42.719 respond to violence in Gaza. You know, perceived attacks by 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:47.040 Israel against Palestinians tend to have ripple effects across the 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:49.840 public opinion across the entire Arab world. So you saw 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.560 that quite quickly, and then you saw Arab governments issuing 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.280 condemnations I think maybe to get ahead of public opinion 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:59.080 even before the evidence could confirm exactly what had happened 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:01.840 at the hospital, and that has caused a shift. I mean, 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:04.320 you saw President Biden was supposed to go to Jordan 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.680 to meet with various Arab leaders. That meeting apparently is 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:09.639 now off the table, so he is flying to Israel 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:11.639 to just meet with the Israeli government, which is not 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:13.879 going to look good I think for the President broadly speaking, 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:15.359