Ukraine Is Breaking Russia’s War Machine | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

The Team House - dee takos

The podcast discusses escalating tensions in the Middle East, U.S.-Iran negotiations, and Ukraine's strategic success against Russia. Key themes include military deterrence, regional diplomacy, and geopolitical strategy.

Key takeaways

• Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil infrastructure are weakening Russia's war machine.
• Iran is using negotiations to stall while maintaining leverage through proxies and shadow fleets.
• U.S. concessions to Iran risk undermining long-term leverage without verifiable commitments.

Transcript preview

Hey everybody welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics I'm here with Jonathan Hackett Mick Mollroy might be joined by Andy Milburn fingers crossed. Per usual a lot happening dizzying as ever we left off yet last week Vance and Kushner and Wickoff we're gonna meet in Switzerland with the Iranian delegation to supposedly hammer out what comes next during the 60 day ceasefire obviously that's not exactly happening over the last week there's been the Iranians hit a couple of commercial ships with some drones we knock down a drone out of the sky and then we and then we hit areas in southern Iran Iran then shot might I might begin the timeline wrong but like Iran shot drones and ballistic missiles like Kuwait and Bahrain so it very much doesn't seem like there is a ceasefire anymore Israel and Lebanon made a deal game for this deal doesn't sound like it. So there's a lot to be a lot to be said. I mean where are you guys tracking what are you guys looking at hack that you can go first? Well it seems that the strikes back and forth between Iran and the United States are different than they were obviously during the war which was you know kind of an unrestrained military operation at that time and now it's more tit for tat which is actually very similar to what it looked like back in 2019 2020 around the custom Solemani strike if people if people if people if people There was a lot of escalation in November and December leading up to that back and forth increasing each time and we kind of see something very similar right now which is a little bit more choreographed in my opinion or at least telegraphed. These are not intended to cause wide scale damage or destruction to the other side instead they're a messaging opportunity for each side to demonstrate to the other that there is resolve and this is a key component of deterrence you know deterrence requires that the other side believes that the threat is credible and the threat needs to be public. need to know the threat exists. And so we kind of see that playing out right now. That's why these strikes are so small, precise, specific on very narrow targets and not continuing after each one occurs. So I think that's how the best way to probably read that is a military extension or an operational extension of the discussions going on in Switzerland to demonstrate both sides to each other that they're serious in both directions, serious about negotiating, but also serious about what happens if negotiations if negotiations and they have to both feel that they can keep up the reality that that's true on both sides. Thank you there? Yeah, I'm here. Um, go ahead. Yeah, so I'll start with some positive, right? Uh, so obviously there was a signing of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon. I'd agree that Hezbollah is a problem here, but um, it, on the positive front, it does specify the need to disarm Hezbollah and get Hezbollah above the Laptani River, which is required by UN resolution anyway. And I think it does recognize that the key factor in this is also a Iranian proxy. Right? So although Iran is demanding the stabilization of the Middle East, Iran is also the biggest destabilizing factor in the Middle East. you know starting the fire and then demanding it be put out and then somehow taking credit for at least the parts of the fire that put out but on the positive side I think that was a good thing and hats off the Secretary Rubio for getting it to where it is the other positive I would say is there does seem to be an attempt now led by centcom to create an alternative path through the Strait of Hormus that's obviously closer to Oman. That said, so that they can mitigate against this unwillingness by Iran to give up control of the Strait, which they clearly are not, clearly, and have no intention to. However, I'm told by people who I am both served in the US Navy and are familiar with transiting there and in a commercial capacity that it would only be available. to use for outflow. Don't know why that's the case. If there's somebody that knows, I had to jump off the call with them so I didn't get the details of why that's the case, but he said that that path out is, could get the 500 plus ships that are stuck, but it can't be used, I think, in mass, for inflow. If that's the case, it would be interesting to hear exactly why. Maybe I'll give my friend a call to this again. But anyway, so that's somewhat positive. negative is it looks like to me that Iran has no interest in even doing any part of the MOU except for take money. So I don't know how much we've given away already, but my advocacy would be stop. Don't give them any more money. Don't allow them to make any more money. Don't give them any more unfrozen access. And stop talking about 300 billion, which seems... I don't even know why that was ever the case. They need to preserve that capacity, that carrot, if you will, for an ironclad verifiable, more restrictive JCPOA, period. Because if we give all this up front, it's just basic negotiations, right? They're going to have little to no incentive to enter another agreement and everything they're saying says they're not going to enter agreement that's more restrictive than the JCPOA. They're saying, they're saying, they're saying, they're saying, I mean, Pasehizeshkin came out. said, we are never going to give up enrichment. Well, if you're not going to get a more restrictive JCPOA, because it was already pretty restricted in there. So I would say stop any money going to them, potentially get ready because we still have the assets in place to blockade, because they have not done anything, anything that they were supposed to do under this agreement, which was very little. Open the Strait, same status as before the war. They have not done. So I think we're in solid footing to say, well, well, then you're not getting into the benefits. And until we get through this nuclear discussions and we find out whether you're legitimately, genuinely negotiating, or you're just stalling to the end of this administration, which I think many people think they're doing. You're not getting any financial incentive. In fact, we're going to reimpose sanctions, we're going to put more sanctions. So and then I'll end with this and I'd be interested. to hear both your comments on this. There is a lot more discussions when I am talking particularly on foreign media of other countries being willing to join a coalition to force open the strait. I don't know if they necessarily, in the European countries specifically. I don't know if they necessarily mean use ground forces, but willing to contribute mine, clearing, you know, capabilities. Many countries like Germany, for example, have that capability. two standing groups in NATO for example but there's more of a willingness to go okay didn't agree with the war wasn't ask about the war but the Strait is international and it affects my people as much as it affects the Americans I have to do something I'm speaking as if I was a leader of one of these countries so I think there is a I think there's a growing potential that other countries could become involved because of the Strait we'll have to see what that means Yeah, I think Japan is actually a key, you know, non-European partner in this because they have mind-clearing capabilities and they also have operational experience not only in the straight area but in the Red Sea. So from south to north all along the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, their ships have sailed recently on counter-piracy missions in an integrated capacity with the not only UK Maritime Organization but also the Combined Maritime Task Force, which is dozens and dozens of countries working together. Japan would definitely be a key part of that especially because Japan is suffering from this conflict just like everyone else obviously but in particular because of the energy squeeze on Japan on their economy so there is an incentive for them to want to participate not just you know morally but economically as well for the Japanese industrial capacity that's an acute problem for them but also going back to the agreement that you're talking about Mick there's a fundamental flaw in this agreement no matter how brilliant this agreement the ideal situation happens and it suddenly flops it flop flop's over into this overwhelmingly positive thing for the United States and overwhelmingly negative for Iran. It's an executive agreement not a treaty and that means just like the JCPOA the next president could come in crumple it up and throw it away and you have to put yourself in the mind of the other side of the table they know that so they're worried about you know even if this deal turns out and they get the 300 billion everything's great for Iran that could all get pulled away immediately. So if you're thinking like that pragmatically, you'd have to be setting up some kind of background structures to protect yourself in the case that you're negotiating counterpart pulls the rug out from under you. And that goes exactly to what possession is talking about with the enrichment. It would be unwise for them to stop enrichment even with this agreement, but it'd be even more unwise knowing that the agreement itself is on flimsy ground and will likely be changed in the next presidency. Even if a Republican comes in it will changed because the current agreement is not popular with some of the Republican Party. So it's possible that no matter who... With Secretary Rubio. Right. Exactly. He doesn't look like... Yeah, so no matter who comes in, it's going to get shaken up and changed in a negative way probably to Iran and so they're thinking about that. They're saying what structures can we set up behind the scenes so that if and when this does happen we're ready to survive again, to continue surviving. They're not stupid, we've seen this. They've demonstrated forethought, significant forethought, again we mentioned this last episode some of the guys sitting at that table like aragchi themselves have sat at the table with Americans in the last 20 years every single time so these are experienced negotiators they felt what it feels like when the US decides to renege on a major agreement they won't allow themselves to be left out in the cold ever and I don't think they ever have they've always been preparing to be betrayed by the other side I mean it's in their ideology that you can't trust the west you can't trust Israel and all this like that's built into their ideology so even they still wouldn't believe it. So you have to expect that they're setting things up in the background and we as pragmatic thinkers in the US government, especially on the Intel side, have to be thinking about what things are just in case this agreement doesn't happen. And a lot of those things look like surrogate forces, special ways of using the economy to continue having access to cash, the ability to keep the shadow fleet going, because right now we've removed a lot of the restrictions on their ability to ship oil, so we're allowing them to make money off the oil so we're allowing them to make money off of that we have said was the terrible thing for them to do and we're letting them do that now. Well they're not going to just stop using their Shadow Fleet, they're going to continue using the Shadow Fleet and use regular commercial fleets. It would not make sense for them to suddenly just pull the plug on this elaborate system of clandestine shipping and receiving and financial assets that they've spent blood on and treasure on. They're not giving that up. And it would be very naive of us on this side of the negotiating table to think that's true. And so there has to be something that's true. And so there has to be something European partners and as you mentioned any international partners like Japan or South Korea coming together to ensure that even if this agreement gets crumpled up there are structures on our side in place they're gonna help preserve our position there too because that energy value is not going away anytime soon even if we completely change to electric vehicles you still require petroleum to make plastics a lot of the crude oil that China was using was not for energy it was for producing plastics like things you buy on Amazon that's what that crude oil is for and until we find a solution to replace that we're kind of still dependent on that straight until we change otherwise. So on that point Jonathan, I think there is a provision in the MOU, what I recall, where the agreement would be also validated with the UN security council. So I think they are concerned about the very issue that you brought up, which is obviously the case because we tore it up in 2018 or threw it away. The other thing and I don't know if this would work but if what if the UN passed a resolution specifically calling for a coalition to open the street and they countries did contribute to a maritime coalition that simply went through the straight collected all the 500 plus ships and left. I mean would Iran obviously risky and And I don't know that this is just simply a hypothetical, because I don't know that any countries would do it, but say they wouldn't. They're not attacking Iran. They're simply going through an international waterway to ensure it's open so they can get their oil that's going to go to their country, right? Would Iran attack, where they, you know, it's coming down. It's coming down the Red Sea, it's going to get closer to the Strait. When Iran attack a blue-flagged international coalition of countries who aren't part of the war, that are simply going into the Persian Gulf to collect and escort these ships out and then they just keep doing it. They keep bringing ships in and out. Would Iran be willing to then turn its military efforts against an international