[00:00] Quick reminder, coupon code EXPLORATION at meetkevin.com today. We are 60 days away from an election in the United States, midterms, and this creates a really big problem when it comes to what's going on in Iran
[00:14] based on history, specifically what's on this whiteboard right here. Donald Trump has also been alluding, or maybe not alluding, but secretly plotting with staff inside of the White House, that there's going to be a goal to seek a quiet period in Iran
[00:30] between now and the next 60 days, but possibly intensify those attacks against Iran or actions against Iran after midterm elections. But the problem is what Israel is saying,
[00:44] Iran is planning now. And that's potentially increased aggression going into midterms. And have they ever done that before? The answer is yes. That's where a little history lesson becomes super useful.
[00:58] in 1979, the Iran hostage crisis started on November 4th, which just happened to be an exact year before the 1980 election.
[01:13] So interestingly, you get a hostage crisis that starts on November 4th of 1979 under Carter. Carter says they're close to a deal in October of 1980.
[01:28] So right here, they're close to a deal. There's murmuring, hey, we're negotiating this, we're almost going to resolve this hostage crisis.
[01:40] But it doesn't get resolved before the election. Carter loses in 1980. The party gets crushed. What do you get? Reagan wins. Iran did not authorize, even though Carter set up the hostage crisis resolution, the Iranians did not authorize the hostage crisis to end until minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in.
[02:07] They literally waited for inauguration minute to release the hostages, because they did not want to give a president that they'd been fighting with and negotiating with a win.
[02:20] So if you combine Iran's history around escalating around our political calendar and election cycle, there could be an incentive here for Iran to escalate a tax and drive oil prices higher
[02:36] between now and 60 days from now, because it could potentially strip Donald Trump of the majority in the House and Senate, which limits a unified Donald Trump
[02:48] from potentially looping Congress into authorizing extended intervention or sanctions or straight-up war against Iran. So there's an expectation, especially since the Iran war has gotten so unpopular in America,
[03:02] that Iran might end up using this as an opportunity to escalate strikes against the United States, which is exactly what we saw just last week. Just last week, we saw this mining, this sort of re-mining attempting by Iran.
[03:21] Financial Times does a great piece on this. They actually say the timing wasn't a surprise. Chris Wright, on August 22nd, started bragging about how the seven-day average pace of oil leaving the Strait of Hormuz was 8 million barrels a day.
[03:35] That's still down from 20 million barrels a day beforehand, but it's still pretty good, especially if you include the Saudi East-West pipeline. So that pretty decent in terms of recovering some of those oil exports And so shortly after this bragging started what happened Well the Iranians tried to start remining the Strait of Hormuz which led to us striking LARAC
[03:57] which ended up leading to the Iranians counterattacking us, and then, of course, us counterattacking them, which ultimately led to a strike, what appeared to be accidentally on a wedding in Iran that killed people.
[04:10] And then Iran decided to launch ballistic missiles in retaliation for that against an air base that we have right on the border of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. And we were told no major damage had occurred there and that there were no injuries.
[04:28] That was the same place three soldiers died in an earlier strike this year. Three Americans died there earlier. but now satellite footage was showing and it's really blurry here not particularly useful but showing this sort of black hole
[04:41] that appears right here which suggests that at least one ballistic missile ended up striking the edge of one of these hangars so maybe true indeed that no American was killed
[04:55] you know sometimes these numbers are delayed maybe somebody was injured we don't know we were told no injuries but we were also told that everything was intercepted and these rockets, well, not everything was intercepted.
[05:07] We were told that 10 out of 13 rockets were intercepted, ballistic missiles, I should say, and that the other three landed in a non-populated area. The day it happened, I said, well, non-populated could be where the base is,
[05:20] because the base is basically in the middle of nowhere. And for sure enough, that non-populated area still ended up seeing a ballistic missile directly hit our air base. and it's a helicopter base.
[05:32] When I say air base, I don't want anybody to think there's a runway. There's no runway. The point is, it's not a surprise that as soon as you get bragging by the Trump administration about the oil flows that they're secretly shoveling through in the middle of the night
[05:45] by having transponders off on ships and they're providing escort services for these ships, ships are registering actively with the U.S. military to get this escort service. It's not a surprise that two tankers ended up getting struck
[05:58] by rocket fire and drones from Iran. Iran was trying to remine. That led to this escalation that we've seen just over the last week. But now, the bigger issue is that you have fears
[06:10] that Israel is seeing, quote, serious signs that Tehran may resume fighting soon. It not only aligns with the sort of bragging that Donald Trump is doing about how much oil is flowing,
[06:22] but it aligns with the election and calendar cycle, and it aligns with Iran's history. so the next 60 days are somewhat bearish for oil coming down.
[06:35] So in other words, that's actually called being bullish oil, but just saying that sounds weird, because why would you be bullish about oil prices going up? That hurts the consumer. The only reason you're bullish on that is if you're trading it. But anyway, Israel's political leadership and defense establishment
[06:49] are preparing for the possibility that Iran could renew the war in a dramatic shift in Israel's assessment of Tehran's intentions. The Iranian regime feels it has reached a dead end under mounting economic pressure
[07:03] and may conclude that fighting is the only option that remains. Financial Times, in fairness, does go on to argue that there are gas lines in Tehran, that there are shortages of petrol available,
[07:16] that grocery store prices are skyrocketing under rapid inflation, and rather than just giving up, their option out might be more aggression against the United States and Israel. especially following their attack towards that airbase in Jordan.
[07:32] Again, helicopter airbase in Jordan, which is what they're referencing right here, towards Aqaba is exactly where that airbase is right pretty close to the edge of the water there But anyway Tehran understands that it has lost leverage in the freight of Hormuz and it might try to establish a credible threat
[07:51] against oil infrastructure and water desal facilities in the region. In my opinion, likely, while they're not putting a time on this, they're just saying they're seeing credible evidence
[08:04] that Tehran is mounting their potential for an attack soon. In my opinion, the best time for them to do that would be before the election. And based on history, history tells us, before the election is absolutely when we would indicate or expect a ramp-up of conflict.
[08:20] Because that could literally strip Donald Trump of that Republican support in Congress that he really longer-term needs to continue to escalate this conflict, especially since The New York Times, you know, they have a decent graphic here.
[08:34] Where is it? Here it is. They have a decent graphic. You know, the Times, obviously, there's a risk that there's some bias just being anti-Trump, so we have to kind of go into this with that sort of mindset on. Their argument is that this blockade is really starting to strain our Navy.
[08:51] They give examples of how many amphibious troops they have to support with the, you know, Marine Ready groups, essentially. You've got multiple different ships.
[09:03] And yes, even though aircraft carriers can be nuclear powered, you still have to fuel all of these other ships, the amphibious ready groups with 5,000 troops. You need food. You need fuel. The only places you could really go do that
[09:15] would be Diego Garcia, 2,200 miles away, or Singapore, 3,700 miles away. And if these aircraft carriers were going, you know, 18 knots, That's going to take you 122 hours one way at 24 hours in a day.
[09:32] That's going to take you about five days just to go one way, you know, at 18 knots. You know, maybe you send other ships that might be able to move a little faster.
[09:44] But they're arguing at the same time as this election issue is coming up, you've got signs from Israel that suggest a potential escalation coming. we are already strained in the region by trying to support this blockade,
[10:01] especially since some of our other resupply ports have been hit earlier in the war. Now, Al Jazeera also has some notes on this. Al Jazeera here says that the former U.S. ambassador to Tunisia has suggested,
[10:13] Joey Hood has warned that Iran could be preparing for a spectacular attack. Now, that's quite bearish. But this individual, this former U.S. ambassador is arguing that there could be a, quote, spectacular attack within the next six weeks.
[10:29] They have a history of trying to humiliate U.S. presidents, especially around election time. They've also been involved in hacking around the 2020 election and the 2024 election.
[10:41] Both U.S. and Israeli elections are happening at the same time, and it's an overwhelming temptation for Iran to drive up gasoline prices in the United States, especially knowing that American voters are very sensitive to gas prices.
[10:57] Right, we all know the line, quote, it's the economy, stupid. Hood said there is a stalemate in diplomacy and diplomatic efforts are not really moot unless there, or are really moot, excuse me,
[11:11] unless there's something equally spectacular from the mediators. But we're not seeing anything good coming out of mediation right now. so this sort of memorandum of misunderstanding continues to be a memorandum of misunderstanding
[11:23] Donald Trump literally saying you know we're slow walking Iranian negotiations because we just don believe they ready to sign the deal that indicates more risk of escalation So this is not good A spectacular attack could also be combined with how should we put it
[11:43] the Financial Times did a piece a few days ago that suggested Russia is secretly aiding Iran in the development of cruise missile technology. They don't have cruise missile technology right now, they have ballistic missile technology.
[11:57] We're not even intercepting all of the ballistic missiles, and that's how some of our service members have died. Cruise missile technology, so jet-powered cruise missiles that travel much closer to the surface of the Earth, are harder to detect, harder to intercept,
[12:11] and they can change their trajectory much more easily than a ballistic missile. A ballistic missile, generally in the terminal phase of flight, doesn't change its trajectory. Just so you can visualize that a little bit,
[12:23] because I think it's really useful. When you think of ballistic, there's a reason it's called ballistic. It's kind of like, you know, bullet trajectories and ballistics, right? Ballistic armor and all that kind of stuff.
[12:36] Because a ballistic missile really gets powered in its first phase of flight. It's essentially a powered rocket, right? And the reason we call it a ballistic is because it's going to fly in the shape of a parabola.
[12:51] and you can use a computer to algorithmically go, okay, well, that's the launch path. It started its descent or unfueled path, right? Its cutoff path or fueling path.
[13:04] Well, now we could sort of project it should land over here. It's basically drawing a problem. A cruise missile is a totally different beast. A cruise missile flies really close to the surface of the Earth,
[13:18] up and around terrain using radar much faster or using its own sort of near-ground radar sensors. But speaking of radar, it's really hard for, you know, radar dishes to...
[13:31] That's a pretty bad drawing. I don't even know what that is. It's a red flag. How about that? Radar is really hard for radar to pick up on cruise missiles. You have this delayed impact. And there's a lot of fear that they could use some new weaponry
[13:46] new technology that they're getting from China and Russia to kind of level a playing field a little bit with this blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, and maybe that would end up being some form of, you know, spectacular attack.
[14:01] The article, if you want to see it in the FT, is Russia secretly helping Iran develop supersonic cruise missiles, very different than just ballistic missiles, so a big rift. So, not good for the next 60 days on oil prices,
[14:17] and not good for what an escalating conflict could end up being for forcing the Federal Reserve potentially to hike into the election season. I think they're really desiring not to do that,
[14:29] but we should really be paying attention to Iran, especially following what they call a war crime of a strike by the United States on the wedding that occurred and was struck.
[14:42] This is sort of like a mistake that was seen when the United States struck a little girl's school accidentally because it was next to an IRGC training facility, which then makes you wonder, like, how does our intelligence screw this up?
[14:56] But that's the nature, unfortunately, of war, and that's not a way to justify what's happening. It's all bad. It's just the bad might get worse Good. I don't know about advertising.
[15:08] These things that you told us here, I feel like nobody else knows about it. We'll try a little advertising and see how it goes. Congratulations, man. You have done so much. People love you. People look up to you. Kevin Passer, a financial analyst, a YouTuber.
[15:20] Meet Kevin. Always great to get your take.