Editor’s Notes: Colonel Doug Macgregor joins Daniel Davis to provide a sobering assessment of the escalating conflict with Iran and why a quick resolution remains unlikely. The conversation explores the devastating impact on global energy and commodity markets, including the shutdown of major refineries and the resulting threat of long-term inflation. Macgregor analyzes the limits of coercive military power, suggesting that current strategies may inadvertently drive global powers like Russia and China closer to Tehran. From the risk of regional instability to the potential for domestic shortages, this deep dive examines the high stakes of a war that is reshaping the international order. (Mar 15, 2026)
TRANSCRIPT:
The War Is Not Ending Anytime Soon
COL DOUG MACGREGOR: I think that at this point the administration wants very much to convince everybody that everything is just fine and this won’t last much longer. No, everything is not just fine. The UAE just shut down the largest oil refinery in the world with no prospect of reopening anytime soon. You have a similar set of circumstances in Qatar.
In other words, whatever you say about what you’re doing to the Iranians, you have to look at the facts on the ground. Are the Iranians continuing to launch theater ballistic missiles? Yes. Are they continuing to hit targets in Israel and around the Gulf region? Yes.
We haven’t even talked about eastern Iran, where you have more underground missile cities, none of which are being touched because frankly, eastern Iran is out of range for the most part of our weapons systems. So this is not ending anytime soon. But I certainly understand why President Trump said that because he wants to reassure the markets. But eventually the markets are going to figure this out.
Gulf Nations Slash Oil Output
DANIEL DAVIS: Well, that’s exactly where I was going to go next because that graphic I’m showing here, this is showing that the Gulf nations have slashed output by 6.7 million barrels a day. That’s 33% of regional production. For the reason you just mentioned that the storage is full and they can’t bring any more out of the ground.
But just for everybody’s understanding, the way this works is that the system is designed to not have war. So that when they pump stuff out, they put it in holding tanks for a while, the ships come in empty, they fill them up, they roll out and it’s just this nonstop whatever, 15, 20 million barrels per day.
Well, if all of a sudden you shut down the strait, then there’s nothing to offload and those storage tanks are not made to go for a long period of time. So now the only thing left is to shut down production and that’s going to have longer effects even after the strait gets opened up. But right now, Doug, I haven’t seen any evidence that it’s going to be.
25% of the World’s Oil Is Now Offline
COL DOUG MACGREGOR: No, the first thing we need to keep in mind is that roughly 25% of the world’s oil is now offline. That’s a quarter of the world’s oil supply. Now that is offline, not for a few days or for a few weeks. In some cases it’s indefinite. So that’s the first thing.
35% of the world’s fertilizer is now no longer being shipped. And that too is a vital aspect of our lives that we don’t pay a great deal of attention to. Natural gas fuels over 40% of US power. Higher gas prices lead to immediate utility bill increases for consumers.
So what’s this mean? US manufacturers of fertilizers and chemicals face higher feedstock costs. Eventually we’re going to see the price of food and consumer goods rise dramatically.
And what about monetary policy? Persistent energy driven inflation could prevent the Federal Reserve from cutting any interest rates as they previously planned in 2026.
So when you go to regions of the world, you look at a place like Europe, we went into March 2026 with a very low inventory compared with previous years. Roughly 46 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas or liquefied gas and global gas. So at the end of February, compared to 60 billion cubic meters in 2025, we have 46 billion. So by February 28th there were reports coming in indicating that LNG liquefied natural gas specific storage fell below 30% capacity.
In Asia, the demand rate remains extraordinarily high, particularly in China and India. Each of those countries depends upon 50% of their oil from the Gulf. And even though Iran has said if it’s a Chinese or Indian ship, you get to go through the Gulf, well, if you’re not refining anything, if you’re not extracting anything, if you can’t store anything, what does that say about the global supply outlook?
We expected that there would be in 2026 a projected rise of say 7% in global LNG supplies. The fastest growth since 2019, driven by new projects in the United States, Canada and Qatar. Now that’s gone, that’s out and everyone is feeling the squeeze.
You just go down the list. 100 day buffer. As of 2026, China holds 104 to 115 days of net import cover in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, targeting the shadow supply. Well, by capturing Maduro and Venezuela and striking Iran, the US has effectively shut down the two primary sources of discounted oil that China used. The result, China is now forced to buy more expensive, transparently traded oil from the global market, rapidly depleting its cheap reserves.
I guess what I’m trying to get across is we are not feeling the profound impact as quickly as the rest of the world, but it’s going to catch up with us. It’s going to catch up with us.
Trump Tries to Calm the Markets
DANIEL DAVIS: And you mentioned a second ago, Doug, that President Trump has got to be keenly, sharply aware of this because that’s something he actually has always paid attention to.
But he’s also trying to calm markets here. He was last night trying to do exactly that by trying to say this whole oil thing, not a big deal for us.
VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:
DONALD TRUMP: It affects other countries much more than it does the United States. Doesn’t really affect us. We have so much oil. We have tremendous oil and gas, much more than we need. We have Venezuela now as our new partner, great partner, and it’s a massive source of oil, gas, everything. We’re in a very good position, but very unfair to other parts of the world, like China, as an example. We’re doing this for the other parts of the world, including countries like China, and we’re protecting the world from what these lunatics are trying to do.
VIDEO CLIP ENDS:
The Real Economic Risks for America
DANIEL DAVIS: Now, what if you could talk about that, Doug? Because obviously we do have plenty of domestic oil, but oil is a global commodity, which still affects our economy. I wonder if you can explain what the risks are for us.
COL DOUG MACGREGOR: Well, I think the first thing to understand is that inflation is going to catch up with us and electricity costs are going to rise. Industrial goods will become more expensive, and our monetary policy is going to be constrained. You can’t cut interest rates in the current setting, current environment.
So I think those three things — electricity costs, industrial goods, monetary policy — all of those will affect us negatively. Now, that may not be felt by the middle of April, but I suspect you’ll start feeling it by then. But certainly by the time the summer hits, it’s going to get ugly.
And this is something that’s going to hurt us badly as a country through the summer, and will have profound consequences for the president. And now, when you go overseas, of course, the global economy and recession are not going to make friends for us. And I think the pressure on us to end this, whatever it takes for us to end this, will be enormous.
Now, when I say whatever it takes, I’m not talking about a nuclear weapon, for God’s sakes. What I’m saying is that people will say this has got to stop. And if you’re desperate because of the impact of all of this, then you may be willing to weigh in on the side of Iran, which I think is going to happen, frankly, particularly when it comes to the Chinese and the Russians.
Trump’s Truth Social Warning to Iran
DANIEL DAVIS: And in fact, that’s actually what I want to talk about next, because first of all, despite Trump’s calm words there to try and make the markets calm, that can work on just American Joe Q. Public that watches on TV. It’s not going to work for the people who really understand what’s going on.
But I think Trump’s real terrifying fear of all what’s going on, and his anger, really showed up after he made those comments, when he posted this on Truth Social, to where he’s just really kind of going over the top to warn Iran and anyone else that if Iran does anything that stops the flow of oil within the Strait of Hormuz — which, as you pointed out, is already the case — they will be hit harder by the United States, 20 times harder than they’ve been hit thus far. Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be rebuilt back as a nation. And then he goes on to talk about that, and we better keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
This tells me that he is aware of how critical this is, and he’s trying to use words to coerce the opening of the Strait. But the question is, will that work? Is that going to coerce Iran to open the Straits?
Iran Will Not Submit — The Demands Are Israeli
COL DOUG MACGREGOR: No, not at all. In fact, right now, I think from the Iranian perspective, they are being told either you submit unconditionally to what the Israelis demand. That’s important to understand because the demands that President Trump has been making are not his. They never were. They are Israeli demands.
So what are they? No enrichment of any kind. You effectively have to dismantle your ballistic missile inventory so that you can pose no threat under any circumstances to Israel, and you can’t have any friends or allies in the region with whom you cooperate.
The Iranians are not going to do that. They’re not going to surrender, and they know what surrender means. So, frankly speaking, I think they’re in the mode of it’s better to live on your knees than die standing up.
So I don’t see any evidence that what President Trump is saying will happen. The other point is that he was complaining earlier that these ship captains that are responsible for these tankers are gutless. Why doesn’t someone try to force their way through the Straits of Hormuz? I guess he doesn’t understand the insurance industry. You can’t insure anything that tries to go through the straits. They’re not going to insure something they know will be sunk.
And if there’s one thing we can absolutely guarantee is that anything that tries to go through those straits that the Iranians don’t want to go through will, in fact, be sunk. They have extensive weapon systems, missiles dug into the cliffs, ready to go in, ready to go out and sink whatever is threatening the integrity of the Gulf.
So I just don’t see how he’s going to achieve what he wants by simply doubling down on what I think is already a failed strategy, especially since it’s not necessary for us.
Is the U.S. Strategy “Scoped Properly”?
DANIEL DAVIS: Secretary Hegseth this morning also commented on that. But for all of his declaration and all of his tough rhetoric and stuff, this sounds kind of soft and tepid to me. On Hormuz, what do you think?
VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:
PETE HEGSETH: He takes very seriously the condition of that straits. We have capabilities that no other nation on earth has, and we’re certainly working with our energy partners across the administration to control for that. That’s part of that scoping of this. The world needs to understand this doesn’t have — this isn’t intended to be, nor is it something that will expand. We know exactly what we’re attempting to achieve here, scoped properly, and the American people can count on that for sure.
VIDEO CLIP ENDS:
DANIEL DAVIS: Do you think really, that we know what we’re doing and scoped properly? We can count on that. What say you, Doug?
Wars Cannot Be “Carefully Scoped”
COL DOUG MACGREGOR: Well, I’ve never heard of a war that was carefully scoped. And if you go back to 1965 and come forward, we have scoped wars, as he says. In other words, we’ve imposed limitations on ourselves or we’ve tried to emphasize one thing or the other, but with the exception of Desert Storm, where we employed a very large ground force that could have easily crossed the river and marched on Baghdad had it wanted to, we haven’t had much success.
You can blow things up. And again, explosions on the ground — how do I put this? They’re very seductive. You see the giant explosion and you’re absolutely convinced that what you did made a difference. That’s not necessarily true.
The other thing is this has become extraordinarily expensive. I think it was $5.4 billion were spent just in the first 24 to 36 hours, thanks to the intensity of our airstrikes and our use of all these precision guided weapons. The Kosovo air campaign, which lasted 78 days back in 1999, only cost at the time $4 billion, did $6 billion worth of damage, but it only cost us $4 billion.
What is this costing? Do some work with adjusting dollars, and if you keep this up, I don’t know that $50 billion as a supplement will be enough to cover it all.
And again, why are we doing this? What is this going to do for us? How is our security enhanced? It’s not. We’re making enemies everywhere at a very high rate of speed.
Trump’s Options and the Strait of Hormuz Crisis
DANIEL DAVIS: And let’s just take a look at what the options are for President Trump, because obviously this is having. He’s got to — he’s President. Trump clearly feels the pressure. He’s got to get that strait back open. He’s got to get the oil flowing because of the ramifications that has domestically on his electoral chances coming into the midterm. He talked about that yesterday too with Republicans about their strategy going into the midterms, which didn’t include a lot of higher priced oil.
So what’s he going to do now? There are also those, and this is an American we’re about to show you here. But I really think this is more like on the Israeli side about not getting weak kneed and not stopping this war because Trump talking about this is going to be over soon and we’re winning anyway. And Hegseth saying that at the top here, I think that there are those in Israel who are afraid. Hang on. I don’t want you guys to get weak kneed and come to an end like you did 12 days into the last war here. And here is Jack Keane with warning against stopping the war.
Jack Keane: Don’t Walk Away Over Oil Prices
VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:
JACK KEANE: Are we really saying that we cannot accept several weeks of oil prices maybe being higher than what they should be to take Iran off the map as a predator in the Middle East for decades to come? Is that what we’re really saying, that we’re so preoccupied with that, that we’re not willing to make that kind of a sacrifice here? I think not. I mean, I think we got to open our eyes, get a little clear eyed about what is really happening here and we fall prey to walking away on this prematurely over oil prices. We’ve just given Iran a win. They certainly want that. Well, that’s a great point. We’re much tougher than that.
VIDEO CLIP ENDS:
Can Airpower Alone Take Iran Off the Map?
DANIEL DAVIS: Yeah, I don’t know about tougher, but let’s look at the premise of what he’s saying, Doug. Militarily, he’s saying, are we going to walk away from a chance to take Iran off the map? So that’s saying that with the naval and air power we have arrayed throughout the region, we can, if we just keep going, take them off the map with no ground force, nobody on the ground at all. Is that really possible?
COL DOUG MACGREGOR: I’ve said from the very beginning that we have enough firepower in the Air Force and the Navy to destroy Iran. I don’t think there’s any question about that. You can destroy everything if it doesn’t move, if it’s a building, if it sits still, you can strike it. And that’s the kind of thing that the airmen become involved with. They start running out of militarily attainable objectives. And so they just destroy everything that’s in sight. I think we can do that.
Now, will that cause the disintegration of Iranian society? Will that cause the state itself to collapse, which seems to be the underlying hope, if not assumption? I don’t know. I don’t think so. And I don’t think that the world, week after week after week, will stand by and watch and do nothing. That’s been my contention from the beginning, because it’s always clear to me this was never going to be over in a few days. It’s going to take time. And I don’t think we’re going to get what we want.
Because, remember, how does Iran win? It survives. So effectively, what General Keane is insisting is we can exterminate this country. In other words, we can kill enough people, do enough damage that Iran as a nation state no longer exists. And he equates that with success, and he sees that as a positive development for the world. I don’t. I never have.
Not interested in seeing any country anywhere in the world destroyed for vanity or for any other purpose or for Israel’s interests or anyone else’s, because we have no interest in that. We really don’t. We’re not interested in the damage we’re doing to ourselves economically and financially. And that damage has just begun. That’s the point that we’ve been trying to get across to people.
Eventually it’ll hit the guy that comes home at night and says, “I’m going down to the 7-Eleven, get a six pack of beer and a pack of cigarettes, and then I’ll be back and watch the game.” His life is going to be disrupted. Not the billionaires. We know the billionaires will go on being billionaires, but his life, the average American’s life, will be disrupted. So, no, I think it’s a terrible goal. It doesn’t make military sense. It’s not politically useful to us or economically useful to anybody, but that’s where we’re headed.
The Cost of Continuing: Arsenals, Time, and Trade-offs
DANIEL DAVIS: Let me ask you what the consequences of that. Let’s say that President Trump listened to that — and he does listen to Jack Keane, there’s no question about it. Let’s say that he listened to it. He said, “All right, now my knees are strengthened up. Sure. We’re not going to go with this. We’re going to leave the Hormuz until we can force the thing open,” whether it’s by escorting ships and all the common drama that would take. But eventually we could probably blow up enough of those things to get it open, theoretically.
But if they succeeded, then, at doing what you suggested, it literally blew up everything. What would that do? Number one, that would take an enormous amount of time in this massive country, four times bigger than Iraq. And what would that do to our arsenals at home? Because we would have to bring it down way below red levels. That would make us at risk everywhere else. How does that work, the trade-offs?
COL DOUG MACGREGOR: Well, if you’re Trump, you’re telling yourself, “I’ve used military power to remove access to Venezuelan oil for China and I’m stealing Venezuelan oil and selling it at a profit for the United States. And that’s a good thing.” Now, we don’t control Venezuela, we don’t rule the place. The government is not responding to us at all. It’s simply going along with, unfortunately, what it cannot reverse, and that is the exploitation of their oil resources, at least temporarily or for the moment by the United States. And this is seen as a good thing because it reduces China’s access to cheap energy. That’s step number one for the White House.
The second is impose 10% global tariffs to fund domestic AI, rare earth element infrastructure, and protect US markets. We’re trying to do that because we forget that AI demands enormous, enormous energy, and the administration wants to fund that with natural gas. And that brings you to the third step, and that is you turn to Russia and you say, “All right, we’ll remove sanctions in exchange for a trade deal that secures minerals and energy, and we’ll unplug you from the Russia-China-Iran axis.”
Now, what happens after 80 to 100 days and China decides to retaliate? In other words, it says, “I’m not going to put up with this anymore. You want a war, we’ll give you a war.” And what makes anyone think that Russia is going to walk away from its ally in Beijing? I don’t see that happening. So I think that this broad strategy that is animating Trump is going to fail miserably. It’s going to drive everybody away from us. It’s not going to bring anybody to us.
Putin’s Response: Russia Ready to Contribute to Peace
DANIEL DAVIS: And let’s take a look at that. Since you’ve mentioned Russia a couple of times now, before Trump made those comments that we showed you a clip from yesterday, he got on the phone with Vladimir Putin. And according to Peskov this morning in the Russian media, he’s explaining what has happened. And he said, “At the moment, Peskov said there is no such opportunity to quickly end the war, to specify that there are no such intentions. These proposals were conveyed by the president to his interlocutor. Let’s see how the approval process will go further. But Putin’s proposals to end the conflict in the Middle East are still on the table. Russia is ready to contribute to the peace process, but coordination with many parties is necessary.”
So Putin has some ideas to end the war, but apparently those did not go over well with Trump because he didn’t say anything on them. But then this is important too. After that conversation with President Trump, Putin came out and made his own comments about the Strait of Hormuz.
VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:
VLADIMIR PUTIN: Let me remind you that last year, about one third of the world’s seaborne oil exports passed through the Strait of Hormuz, and that is around 14 million barrels per day. Of these, about 80% were headed to the countries of the Asia Pacific region. Now, this route is effectively closed. Oil production that is tied to the use of the strait risks coming to a complete standstill as early as the coming month.
At the same time, I want to remind you that the countries of the European Union plan to introduce additional restrictions on the purchase of Russian hydrocarbons starting April 25, including liquefied natural gas, up to a total ban on such supplies in 2027. In this regard, the government has already been set the task of assessing the possibility and expediency of terminating the supplies of our energy resources to the European market. We should not wait until the door is demonstratively slammed in our faces, but to do it right now and move these volumes away from the European market to more interesting directions. And to gain a foothold there, which is the most important thing.
VIDEO CLIP ENDS:
Russia’s Intent: Making Life Miserable for Europe and the US
DANIEL DAVIS: So it sounds to me like Russia is looking to take an opportunity here to exploit the situation by saying, “Hey, we’re going to chase this moment to stop on our time schedule the oil supplies that we’re going to Europe,” which, in addition to the Middle Eastern problem with fuel for the global commodity, is going to put even more pressure on the Western economy and the Western countries. What do you think his intent is here?
COL DOUG MACGREGOR: Oh, I think his intent is to make life miserable for Europe and the United States. And if you were in his position, why would you not do that? I mean, after all, we’re the ones that have imposed all these punishing sanctions. And he’s simply paying us back for what we’ve done to him in the past. I don’t think there’s any news there.
What I thought was interesting, or what I expected that President Trump might do, is offer a strategic bargain to Putin and say, “Look, we’ll pull out of Ukraine. We’ll get all of our advisors, all of our equipment, everyone in and out of uniform out of Ukraine. We will stop supplying Ukraine. We will not provide any more money. We won’t provide any more equipment. And that’s number one step. And number two is we’ll meet with you, we’ll put a map on the table, and we’ll decide how to divide this child once and for all.”
Now, if he’d said that to President Putin, that would have been very attractive. I don’t think that that would have persuaded him to abandon China. I don’t think Russia will abandon China because it makes too much sense for the Russians to do business with China. China is right next door and it’s their principal consumer of everything they produce. But that could have sensationally, I would say, changed the balance of power, because then there would have been a greater incentive for Putin to compromise potentially in the Middle East on some of his aims, all of which we do not know.
That didn’t happen, Dan. So how do you persuade someone to cooperate with you if you give absolutely nothing up? He’s allowed sanctions on Russian oil to be lifted. This is supposed to be temporary, to help people that need it. It’s too late. That doesn’t make any damn difference at this point. For the rest of the world, they’re all headed on a fast train down into the abyss. We just happen to be on the train behind them. It’ll take us a little longer to get there, but we’ll get there. And Russians aren’t interested in that.
Iran’s Perspective: “This Is a War Imposed on Us”
DANIEL DAVIS: Well, all of this is going to depend on how this dynamic — I mean, whether you’re talking China, whether you’re talking Europe — it’s the global economy, American economy, everything hinges on what happens right now in the Gulf, especially between the United States and Iran. And let’s take a look now at the Iranian perspective, because Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was asked yesterday, “What is your intent on this oil? Is this a weapon you’re using or is it something you’re trying to get rid of?” Well, watch his answer. Is limiting oil supply part of your strategy here?
VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:
ABBAS ARAGHCHI: Well, actually, this is a war imposed on us. And what we are doing is only defending ourselves. We are facing an act of aggression, which is absolutely illegal. And what you are doing is the act of self defense, which is legal and legitimate.
Well, we have already warned everybody in the region that if the US attacks us, since we cannot reach the American soil, we have to attack their bases in the region, their facilities, their installations, their assets, and as a result, the war would be spread into the whole region. So this is the consequence of the US aggression against us.
VIDEO CLIP ENDS:
Who Blinks First?
DANIEL DAVIS: So he’s saying, yeah, that is exactly what we’re doing. So they have a very clear understanding. And one of their IRGC leaders this morning just flat out said, “We will continue to destroy anybody who tries to go through the strait without our permission,” to keep that prohibition in place here. So if Jack Keane gets his way and we just continue bombing, and the Iranians say we’re going to continue keeping it blocked off because that’s part of our strategy — who blinks first?
The Economic and Military Realities of the Iran Conflict
COL DOUG MACGREGOR: Well, General Keane is essentially saying that we are going to destroy the global economy, and we’re arguing that the effects on us are going to be minimal, and so we just need to stay the course. To hell with the rest of the world. I don’t think that’s going to go down very well, especially for the people who are, at least in theory, allied with us in Europe, because they’re among the people who are most likely to suffer.
The logic escapes me. We are treating Iran as though it is some sort of bacillus, a violent and dangerous disease that has to be killed and cut out, even if the patient dies in the process. I don’t think that’s a good answer, Dan.
Trump’s Escalating Threats and Iran’s Response
DANIEL DAVIS: And so where do we go from here? I want to play one more soundbite from the Secretary. Actually, Gary, if you could first put that Truth Social from Trump up last night, because there’s something that’s important here further down that I want to talk about.
Trump was saying last night, not just warning about the Strait of Hormuz, but also warning that 20 times greater firepower is coming if you don’t open this thing up. He says, “20 times harder than they’ve been hit thus far. Additionally, we’ll take out additional destroyable targets that will make it impossible for Iran to ever rebuild back as a nation.”
Today, Secretary Hegseth said this: “He takes very seriously the condition of that strait. We have capabilities. Today will be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran. The most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes. Intelligence more refined and better than ever.”
So that’s on one hand. On the other hand, the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest number of missiles they’ve been capable of firing yet — just the bifurcation, just the trend lines that we talked about on our first briefing.
A couple of days ago, Trump said something on social media, and then allegedly we had the biggest strike that we’d had. Now he says it’s 20 times bigger and something much, much bigger is coming. What is going to be the cumulative effect on this? Does it matter if it’s 40 times bigger? Are we going to be able to bring them to their knees anytime soon? And if we’re not, what is that going to do to our side if we keep expending that kind of ordnance, but it doesn’t translate to any action on the ground?
Iran’s Likely Retaliation and the Coming Economic Shock
COL DOUG MACGREGOR: Well, the last time these kinds of comments were made, the Iranians responded with enormous ballistic missile strikes on Israel along with large numbers of unmanned systems or drones. And not only did they attack Israel, they attacked locations in the Gulf and more American military bases. So I think that’s what will happen initially. The Iranians will strike back with larger and more capable explosives on missiles.
I would say the following. First of all, if you need medication of any kind, you better go out and buy all the medicines you can get, because in a few months they won’t be available, because the petroleum industry has a big role to play in the production of pharmaceuticals. So that’s my first piece of advice. And secondly, start thinking in terms of storing food and any other items that you think you may need, because as this war continues — and it’s going to continue — the impact that I talked about earlier is going to be felt here.
There is no evidence that anybody in Tehran is going to pop up on the phone, call President Trump and say, “Oh, we’re so sorry, we surrender. We’ll do whatever the Israelis want us to do,” because that’s really what it’s all about.
Now, we have other interests. We think we’re harming China. I don’t know what the Chinese will do, but I think the Chinese, over the next few weeks, they’re going to surprise everybody by what they may be willing to do. I don’t know if the Chinese will fly some aircraft into the airspace over Iran and essentially tell us, “Look, we’ve had enough, stop or we’ll go to war.” Maybe the Russians will do something similar. Who knows? There are any number of things that they could do to signal, “That’s it, we’ve had it.”
But in the meantime, I think you just need to prepare for the worst here. And once the stock market figures out — or the investors, the people in New York that run the financial system, who are largely part of the problem for us — they’re going to say, “Oh, my God.” And you’re going to watch the stock market tank and you’re going to watch the cost of a barrel of oil go up to $200 and potentially all the way to $300. And all of that is going to bring everything inside the United States to a screeching halt.
Now, right now, President Trump is betting, based upon what he’s hearing from General Keane and others, that with enough explosives, we can win this thing. And what’s the win for us? The win is Iran cries uncle: “We’re surrendering. You can have what you want. We’ve taken all that we can. We’ll do what the Israelis say.” I just don’t see that happening, Dan.
Can Airpower Alone Bring Iran to Its Knees?
DANIEL DAVIS: Well, let’s look militarily, because that’s exactly what I wanted to talk about here. Militarily, what is possible? Because clearly Trump believes what you just said — that with enough firepower, we’re going to finally bring them to their knees and they will cry uncle, as you say.
But let’s look back at the 2025 war at 12 days. If anybody was crying uncle, it was Israel, because they said, “All right, we’re taking too much damage, we have to get a ceasefire.” Iran this time has said there won’t be a ceasefire in 12 days. They emphatically, categorically said that last night.
But you’ve seen — you and I saw — 38 days of an air campaign in Iraq that didn’t bring them to their knees in 1991. You worked under what I think was 78 days or whatever it was in the anti-Serb war, and that never brought them to their knees the way we thought it was going to. And even that was a more narrow political objective. You had World War II, where both Japanese and German cities we bombed almost into the Stone Age, and it never caused the populations to surrender until a nuclear weapon was used.
Based on what you know of the Iranian culture, of their people, of the terrain, and of our bomb-making capabilities, how long could this go before we get some kind of resolution militarily?
Iran’s Survival Calculus and the Broader Global Alignment
COL DOUG MACGREGOR: I would urge one correction to what you said before we go to Iran, and that is that the Imperial Japanese armed forces were very concerned about Russian intervention that could have resulted in a German-style solution to Japan, dividing it in half. And they knew what the Soviets had done in Eastern Europe and Germany, and the Japanese weren’t going to accept that. And so they decided to endure the humiliation. The bomb itself, while impressive, did not impress them to the extent that we think. The really decisive factor for the Emperor and the General Staff at the time was the very high probability that the Soviets would invade, and they didn’t want the Soviets on their soil.
I think Iran looks at this as: “We survive, we win.” The Americans are going to feel the pain economically. We’re going to try and make them feel the pain militarily. We will inflict what losses we can on them. But we have to stay the course because the very existence and survival of our country is at stake.
The Turks know this, and the Turks have quietly tried to provide the Iranians with assistance in terms of intelligence and information. I think the Turks and the Iranians will grow closer in the weeks and months ahead. We’ve already seen the Kurds that we tried to rope into some sort of ground attack turn us down, knowing full well not only would they be destroyed, but we would abandon them. I think more and more of the world will come to Iran’s side as a result of what we’re doing.
We are seen — and I happen to agree with this — as engaged in an injustice. And the people that are most anxious to destroy everything, unfortunately Dan, are people of my age, people who are, quote unquote, boomers. And they say, “Oh, blast these people. Kill them all. That’s the answer.” This is something that goes back decades to the frustration with our failure in Vietnam and the failures that we’ve had more recently. The answer is always: kill more, destroy more, kill more, destroy more. That’s what we should have done. That’s what we have to do now. We need to be more ruthless than ever now.
I don’t think that’s going to happen on the U.S. side. I think smarter people will prevail. On the other hand, in Israel, that’s a very different set of circumstances. And remember that, if anything, Mr. Netanyahu has demonstrated conclusively that he exercises more influence over us than we do over him. We’re doing all of this at his insistence. And we can go back and talk about the Zionist billionaires in the United States that effectively purchase the Congress and control the White House.
But what’s really important to understand is that Israel is being pulverized. That pulverization is not going to stop. And it’s important for us to understand that. We’ve said over the last several days, several times, “We have hit this, we’ve hit that, and it’s all stopped.” It hasn’t stopped. There is no danger of the Iranians running out of missiles. They can replace launchers and they can fire missiles and drones, and they will do so when it is convenient and useful for them to do so. That will continue.
And that’s why we get back to this question of what are we going to do on the ground? That’s not going to happen. This country will not tolerate a draft. You know that as well as I do. So what does Israel do? And depending upon how desperate they are, they may decide to use a nuclear weapon against Iran. And we can only speculate what the rest of the world will respond with if they do that.
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