The Iran War Just Became Unstoppable | Col. Douglas Macgregor

The desired end state, I'm afraid to say, looks like the disintegration and destruction of the Iranian nation state. Uh, efforts at decapitating the state and and eliminated its national leadership have failed. That hasn't worked. I don't think it will work. Uh, I don't know of a single instance where that's worked certainly in the last 100 years. So, the alternative to essentially removing the government is to destroy the place. And I think that's what we're trying to do. Again, is that going to work? I don't think so. There are 93 million people living in the country. The country itself is roughly the size of Western Europe or half the size of India. I don't think we have enough aircraft, missiles, and bombs to destroy the place. And our recent actions, including the killing of the Supreme Leader, have really forced cohesion onto Iranian society. stiffen their resolve and backbone, if you will. So, I think we're in for a long a long haul, but we can talk about the kinds of things that might compel it to end. None of them, unfortunately, are rooted in logic or purpose. Uh because I don't think any of this was carefully planned or thought through by the Trump administration. I don't see any evidence for that. Now the main players today of course are Iran, Israel and uh the United States but more states are being drawn into this of necessity. You know I've spent a lot of time recently talking to people in India specifically about the economy and their dependence on the streets of Hormuz. Roughly half of all the petroleum that goes to India comes from the Persian Gulf. We have to look at all the products that petroleum is involved with. you you can't make fertilizer, you can't produce it, you can't produce ceramics, you can't produce tires. I mean, we we could make a list that's miles long of all the things that have to stop. So, I think we're looking at an economic shutdown of substantial sectors in Asia right now because 50% of all the oil that China uses also comes through the straits. Although the Chinese to their credit have a pretty substantial uh build buildup of uh oil strategic reserves. So I think the Chinese can uh endure for some period of time. I don't know how long. Uh the Indians don't have nearly as large a strategic reserve of oil and petroleum. Uh Japan buys about 20 72% to 75% of all of its oil from the Persian Gulf. and South Korea roughly 68% to 65%. So Japan uh China, India, uh South Korea, all these states and these are huge components of the global economy are heavily dependent upon oil from the Persian Gulf. Now, what that suggests to me is at some point you either become involved as a belligerent or you try to get a hold of the president in Washington DC and say, "Look here, this can't go on. You've got to stop." Uh, that's something that he has not yet heard. So, if he hears that, understanding the global economic implications, that may bring an end to it. I do not see any evidence that the Iranians are going to come back to the negotiating table. After all, they've been attacked twice now while they were in the midst of negotiations. In fact, there's no reason for the Russians or the Chinese or the Iranians to believe anything we say. We've been extraordinarily untruthful and duplicitous. And this goes back, as you know, all the way to 2014, the coup, and then the Minsk Accords and so forth. So it's a very tough situation right now and I see that both sides but specifically the US side is trying to escalate. The question is how far can you escalate? So then the next issue is logistics. How do you sustain yourself? Now we do have an agreement in place with India in terms of sustaining the fleet at sea. That's not a war oriented agreement. It's simply an agreement that if you want to replenish your ships, you can come into our ports and we'll help replenish those. So, we're going to have to use that because the alternative is Diego Garcia, which is a very long, long way from the theater. So, where do we go in the Mediterranean? We've got to fall back on Europe to ports where we can replenish. And of course, some ports up there where we can reload. For as far as reloading, we've got to go all the way to Diego Garcia. And then people don't understand that you just don't pull into the dock and and people throw crates of missiles on the deck. It takes a long time and it's a it's a hazardous operation. You have to be well trained. We have some problems right now in the fleet with training. So the what's the forecast? Uh you know, it's anybody's guess, but I would say it's going to be a few weeks before anything stops or any there's any willingness to reconsider positions. Until then, we'll uh we'll continue to escalate. Now, here's this other problem. You and I are sitting thousands of miles away from this place. The United States government is not telling everyone the truth. What a shock. So, you know, for us to sit here and say we know that x number of aircraft have been shot down that belong to the US Air Force and Navy or ships have been struck by missiles, the government's not going to tell you that. They're not going to broadcast any casualties or losses on our side. Are we taking losses? Yes, but I I just don't know how many. The greater problem is how many missiles do you have on hand and how many more can you get? We know that the Iranians have tens of thousands of missiles and drones sitting underground in underground facilities that we can't easily reach. Now, we've recently claimed that we have degraded Iranian air and missile defenses to the point where we can fly anywhere we like and do whatever we want. But I've received information this morning from people actually in the theater saying that's not true. So again, you're back to well, what is true and what isn't true? I always had excellent sources on the ground in Poland, Ukraine, and Russia. I don't have that right now in the Middle East. I'm getting fragmentaryary information but not enough to build an absolute picture. But I think we can say three things. First, this was not carefully thought through in terms of purpose, method, and state. Secondly, we have not consulted with our friends and allies. I mean, we're on friendly terms with India. Uh Japan and South Korea are considered allies. Did we consult with them on the wisdom of starting this war and its impact on them? Did we turn to our European allies and discuss with them the consequences? Even though the EU only imports roughly 18% of its oil from the Persian Gulf, nevertheless, did we talk to anybody? Did we ask any questions? How does this affect you? We don't seem to have done any of that. Uh, which is reckless and I think counterproductive. And then finally, there's resupply or logistics. How long can we supply ourselves? How long can we make this work? And uh that's anybody's guess, but I don't think that we have infinite supply and that we can go longer than perhaps four or five weeks. Now, will that be enough? Again, I don't know. And and finally, I would add this. To be successful, Iran has to do one thing. Survive. That's it. for us to be successful the way we've set this up. We have to conquer Iran. Well, that's absurd. Nobody's ever done it from the air alone or with air aircraft and missiles. I don't see that happening now. So, frankly speaking, if I were to place a bet right now, I would say Iran will survive. And remember that Iran also has standing behind it China and Russia. And both of those states have an interest in seeing Iran survive as a nation state. And increasingly the Turks are of the same opinion. And I don't think we have a true picture of the Islamic world at this point. There's a big difference between the people that rule the Emirates and Saudi Arabia and their populations. The populations are actually sympathetic to Iran because they would like us out of the area. So, you know, I I would say that I think whatever happens, however this ends, the American position in the Middle East is is over. We will inevitably be swept out. We're finished. I don't see that we will rebuild 27 bases there. And I don't think the people living there will want us to do that. Now, the next question is what what happens with Israel? And I know that right now internally inside Israel, there are enormous problems. Out of the 100,000 reservists that were just called up, were mobilized for potential war, I I presume, against the forces in Lebanon, we're not seeing an enthusiastic response. One wonders how many will ultimately show up. And we've never had a good count or accountability for the losses the Israelis have taken over the last several years. So, Israel could be in a very fragile state. And it may be that long before anybody thinks Iran cracks, Israel cracks. At what point does Israel say, "We can't take any more missiles. We can't sustain any more damage." And turns to Washington and say, "It's time for you to make the Iranians stop." Well, if we can't make the Iranians stop, uh, then Israel steps forward and says, "We have a nuclear weapon and we'll use it if the Iranians don't stop." That's an entirely different outcome. That's that's something I don't want to see and I don't know how it would be handled because right now it looks to us in the United States as though Mr. Netanyahu has far more influence in this country and over policym than Donald Trump does. So that's it in a in a nutshell. >> Emphasis emphasis emphasis on nuts because that's what I think this is. I was going to say this is a masterclass of you know pulling this apart and you took out a lot of my follow-up questions. I would love to follow up on oil markets for a second and there's two thoughts that I have. First is WTI crude oil is currently trading at $79 a barrel. It seems like markets are expecting this situation in the straight of moose to resolve quickly otherwise we probably should have seen higher barrel amounts already. The the other thought is is this conflict truly about oil if not for the US to access Iran's oil about denying access for China and other BRICS countries that access to that energy? >> Okay. Well, there are two important questions in this. Let me try the first one about oil explicitly. No, you're right. It's not about oil. But it is about oil. That's that's what's confusing. Yes, the markets have responded, but not nearly as much as we expected. Market volatility is up, but not to the not to the point where we would have thought it would be by now. I think that volatility is going to increase dramatically in the days ahead. I think oil will go well north of $100 a barrel. Uh again, it's back to what what are you producing with that barrel of oil? Where does it fit into the various economies, the the major ones that I've already mentioned that depend upon access to the straits of Hormuz and tankers? Uh, I think we're just at the beginning and you know, we know what that means. When you go over $100 in oil, it's going to have an impact on inflation and whole series of other markets. Uh, now it's not about oil, but yet it is because the suspicion is, and I I think this is probably accurate, that the Israelis and the Americans want to do to Iran what we have failed to been able to do to Russia. In other words, we wanted to destroy Russia, sadly, stupidly. And we tried to do that by using Ukraine. And the Ukrainians have lost 1.5 to 1.8 million Ukrainian soldiers, far more than anybody in Western Europe will admit, or in Washington. The Ukrainian nation is destroyed. I don't even know if that place will survive the war. Uh the war isn't over, but it's pretty damn close to being over militarily. It's just a question of the Russians moving forward. I think they will. I think they'll take Odessa. I think they'll take Karkov. These are historic Russian cities. And if they still get no satisfaction in terms of negotiating partners in in Europe, I think they'll move into Kief and root the government out permanently. I also know that morale in Western Ukraine is terrible. People there want an end to the war. You The only way this regime in Kief is holding itself together is with Stalinist methods. They have their own NKVD and that's why they continue to operate. Otherwise, they'd long since gone out of business. And because MI6, the CIA, and Mossad are all involved in trying to keep the the terminal patient that's already on the table dying alive. So I think if you take that seriously then you know that Iran's oil jugular is very important and it's it's probably the easiest thing for us to move into and take because it's in the west and the north of the country. I think the hope is that Iran will fall apart. If it falls apart then the Israelis can move into the area along with help from us and take control of the oil resources. I'm waiting for something to happen to Car Island, which is the large oil terminal from which most of it's dispensed. Hasn't happened yet, but I think something will. Obviously, I think we would like to capture that intact. Now, I don't think this is going to work. I don't think that Iran is going to fall apart. And I think the Russians and the Chinese have already demonstrated in how they helped Iran recently in January of their determination to keep this state from falling apart. Again, as I said, the Turks have too. If about 3 weeks ago, uh the CIA and Mi and Mossad had organized a group of about 400 Kurds to cross the border of northern Iran in direction of Tabris in the hopes that they could stir up some sort of Turk rebellion inside Iran. The Turks, that is the Turkish intelligence officers, informed at Mr. Erdogan's insistence, the Iranians of what was happening. So when the 400 approached the border, they were annihilated by the Iranians. So you've already seen evidence of Turkish willingness to support their neighbor because the Turks don't want Iran to fall apart. If Iran falls apart, millions of refugees cross the border, start pouring into Turkey, the Middle East, and ultimately in into Europe. No one in their right mind wants that to happen. So I already see this sort of uh Islamic uh alliance unspoken alliance hardening in support of it. You also have the Saudis that don't want to be dragged into the war and they've some of their facilities have been attacked but not by the Iranians. It looks as though these are false flags created by Israelis and this has already happened in Qatar as well. So I I think there's a growing and remember Saudi Arabia is very close to Pakistan as is Turkey. Uh the Pakistanis have always promised the Turks nuclear warheads for their missiles if they need it. That's one of the reasons that Mr. Erdogan has warned the Israelis repeatedly, "We're not afraid of you." All of these things are very dangerous. We don't want any of this to happen. But no one in the Trump administration sat down and went through the calculus to figure out where this could go. So now this thing is beginning to spiral out of control. Question is how rapidly and how far. Uh and you know you can predict anything you want. Uh you know we we're now boasting that we sank an Iranian ship off the coast of Silon. What difference does that make? If you look at the missiles and drones that Iran has built, they've demonstrated they don't need an air force or a navy. I mean, that that's how profound the change in technology has become. And I thought we had learned that in the war with Russia. You know, initially the Russians were surprised. They reorganized, they re-equipped, they built up, and they smashed their opponents to the point where there's almost nothing left. The only thing the Ukrainians can do is launch some drones and occasional missiles we give them. But but the point is we should have seen that kind of warfare and understood the limits to our own capabilities because the military establishment that the US has fielded was designed for the Cold War. It was designed for some version of World War II. That's not what we're confronting and that's not what we're going to confront in the future. So all of these things are wrapped up together. H and again I don't think there's an easy answer except that this is going to go on for some time. and oil is going to skyrocket. It's going to hit the roof. Now, let's pause a minute. It's not just oil. I think you're going to see everything uh increase in price. I think coal is going to rise dramatically. uh all of your precious metals. Uh and frankly, as I said it recently at the uh Vancouver resources investment conference, investors conference, if it comes out of the ground, it's going to be immensely valuable in the future. Food is going to be immensely valuable. It's going to become more expensive and more difficult to to acquire because the opportunity to use the fertilizers that produce the green revolution has been narrowed. You know, Russia and Ukraine were huge producers of fertilizer as well as food. You know, all all of these things somehow or another are connected. But when it comes to precious metals, I mean, everyone should understand right now if you don't own a lot of it and haven't invested in it, whether it's silver and gold and other things, well, you're you're not just late to the party, you're probably going to be priced out of everything. And it's not just the precious metals. What about the industries that produce the materials with which we mine? You know what? Everything from from piping to plastic utility, you name it. Everything that is connected with the process of mining and extracting ore, all of that is going to become more valuable in in a strange sort of way. We're being forced backward in history to rely again on the things that are the what's the right word? The the foundation for our civilization, things that we've ignored for years. And I think economically or financially in the United States, you're watching three things happen. The yield on bonds is rising. That's rising. It has to rise because you can't attract investment without it. And even though it's rising, we're still not getting the investment that we need. I think that's one thing. Secondly, the stock market, which is grossly overvalued, is is a bubble that's just waiting to pop. I think the bond market will pop the stock market bubble and then that brings us to the dollar. You have you started off you mentioned bricks. We are in effect in a war against the emergence of a new financial system in which the dollar is not necessarily the centerpiece. In which case the financial institutions that we created in the aftermath of World War II that we dominate will no longer be the mechanism by which people do business. Now I I thought this was going to be a slow process but I think this war is going to accelerate that. So, in a sense, the United States and Israel are fighting against the future, if that makes sense to you, because this this other alternative is going to emerge whether we like it or not. So, instead of adapting to what are changes that are frankly inevitable, we're fighting it everywhere. And I think that fight is going to be lost. >> That makes a lot of sense. And a lot of follow-up questions that I would have lots of analysts that I speak to on this channel here reference that you know gold has been skyrocketing in in recent years. But the reason behind that would be one debasement of the currency printing of of cash which seems to accelerate with this war as deficits will widen. The second one would be ddollarization which one would also expect to accelerate with this war, wouldn't you? >> Yeah, absolutely. Why would you want to be hostage to the US government? I mean, if you if you if you look at what we've been doing, look at what we tried to do with Russian uh billions and billions of rubles that were stored in Brussels. We tried to steal it. I mean, who wants to trust us? I mean, one of the big things that we had going for us certainly in the first 50 or 60 years after World War II was that we were seen as a trusted agent. In other words, you you can invest in the United States. your money, your wealth is safe. Well, we're demonstrating that's not true. It's not just us. It's also the globalists in Western Europe that seem to be very cavalier about Russian wealth. And I think they're cavalier about their country's own wealth. You know, the interesting thing is to watch the Germans and the Italians who have come to us and said, "We would like to repatriate our gold." Has that happened? No, it hasn't happened, you know. So, where's the gold? I mean, this comes up every week in somebody's discussion somewhere. I listen a lot to Alistister Mloud who's been in the gold business forever, and I value his uh opinions and in observations, and he says we're in for a terrific, you know, crash of some kind. It's going to drag everything down. I mean, we could see the dollar collapse as a as a currency of any real value along with the stock market and the blow up in the bond market. Those three things have never happened near simultaneously. They've happened in the past, you know, individually or one or two at a time, but never all three. That's really quite frightening. >> Like you outlined earlier, Doc, the West has underinvested in commodities for years, if not decades already. From your perspective, what do you think the what commodities are, you know, the most crucial to reshore supply chains of ASAP as soon as possible for the West? Well, when you talk about something like rare earths without which you know your your F-35 aircraft won't fly, most of your weapon systems, optical systems, many of your communication systems without rare earths in the American military will all fail. The Chinese made it pretty pretty clear to us that if we continue down this road, we're not going to benefit from the refinery that the Chinese have built that refineses about 80 to 90% of all the rare earths. Now, I think that that in a sense answers your question. We need multiple refineries and there are many different places in the world where that can be done. Doesn't all have to be done in North America. It doesn't all have to be done in Europe, but it's not necessarily gaining access to rare earths. We're discovering rare earths are actually less rare than you would think, but they have to be refined. And that is a laborious process. It costs a lot of money to refine initially because you've got to build this thing. You inevitably have waste, much of which is radioactive, because you inevitably produce a lot of uranium, uh, plutonium that comes out of this process. We we've got to get together as nations and understand that resource sovereignty requires what you mentioned earlier, supply chains and refining. Supply chains and refining. Uh I' I've got partners that are involved in several proposals right now. I think in the United States, we're waking up to this, but not soon enough. Uh we're now wasting God knows how much money on this foolish war with Iran, which is absolutely unnecessary because there is no evidence that they have a bomb. There's no evidence they want to build one. Could they? Of course. But that's always been the case. Japan could have a very large nuclear arsenal if it wanted it in 30 days. And they have the missile technology to launch it anywhere they'd like. Nations, if they're smart, don't want it. And we should encourage that. Unfortunately, by threatening and bullying everyone, we're persuading most of the world, well, I guess uh if you don't want the United States and its friends involving themselves in your private affairs, you better have nuclear weapons. But the point is that we lost a lot during COVID in terms of supply chains and supply chains seek stability. Are we stable? No. And so it's very difficult to build supply chains if you're as a nation, as a power are viewed as unstable. The other thing is we've got to get the government interested in stabilizing prices. One of the huge advantages the Chinese have had in refining rare earth is that they can stabilize the price. They stabilize the price of energy. So you can reach an agreement with the Chinese and it can last for 10 years and you're absolutely certain of what you're going to get at what price level. Do we do that in the United States and Canada? No, we have to do that. So people in the United States, many of whom are radical Austrian school economists and violently opposed to any sort of state uh private sector partnership, you cannot get where we need to go in terms of these precious metals and refining refining rare earths and uranium and everything else unless there is a partnership with government. Because the Department of Defense, at least in my country, which we now stupidly call the Department of War, actually is in a good position to dispose of all that waste. We have places where we put it in Nevada. We've got to have the Defense Department involved in disposing of the waste. And then we also know that you you've got vast quantities of scrap metal uh and tailings from mining. All of that contains rare earths and much of it also contains uranium. You you can refine that as well. But you've got to get the government involved to make facilities available and you've got to find a way towards cheap energy. And I'll give you a great example of where you could have cheap energy and build a refinery in no time. And it would be one of the principal centers of wealth. Believe it or not, Ethiopia. They built enormous hydroelectric power in Ethiopia using the the Nile and and rivers to create it. Well, that hydroelect electric power is ideal because it's eco-friendly. So, that's what you want to use. You don't really want uh coal fired plants if you can avoid it. I'm not anti- coal. Don't misconstrue. I you know I was involved with the coal industry and I think they have a critical role to play and many of the coal sings particularly in southern Kentucky and parts of West Virginia, Pennsylvania have rare earths in their seams. In fact uh I got into some discussions with people that said well fine mine the coal but first let's extract the rare earths from all the tailings and and containment pools that you have sitting around and are being ignored. And they all looked at me as though what planet are you from? because no one had thought about it. But we've run the test down there. We know that exists and we know we can get it. But the government needs to get involved. You know, when we talk about World War II in the United States, we talk about Henry Ford's giant factory that was like a mile and a half long and they turned out god knows how many bombers every day, every week, every year that nobody could keep up with. How did that come into existence? Through the government. The government went in, created the stake, the capital investment, and Ford built it. That's what we need right now. We don't need any more of these ridiculous wars. They're wasted time, money, and resources. How crucial is this is the situation already in some of these supply chains? There were reports recently before this war in in Iran started that there were F-35s being delivered without their radars installed because they didn't have the crucial rar elements needed for those radar systems. >> Report was false. I looked into it and uh my sources including F-35 pilots by the way made it very clear that's just not true. Now could that be true in the future? I wouldn't rule it out. And you know, everyone from India to the United States needs to understand that national sovereignty that used to mean flags and anthems longer does. I mean, anthems and flags are important and borders are important, don't get me wrong. But sovereignty in 2026 now means or now raises the question of number one, do you control your f fuel? Do you where do you get your food uh your fertilizer? and where are your defense supply chains? You know, th this is something that we're we're waking up to, but not soon enough. And then you have to understand how how how all of these industries overlap, you know. So, it's not just the United States that needs to reshore critical industries. India needs to do it. Japan's got to do it. South Korea's got to do it. And I would argue Europeans, particularly the Germans, have to do it and the French. Uh that's not a bad thing, but there has to be a plan, a strategy to make that happen. So when you mention supply chains, our supply chains right now are at high risk because many of the things that we do need to sustain our great military establishment, as President Trump likes to say all the time, uh are leading us back to China. When you look at the continental US, it has fast, incredibly fast natural resources, almost unlimited potential for shell oil. If the country can deregulate effectively and and like you outlined earlier, harness the government effectively to cooperate together with the with with companies, would the United States be the best horse to bet on right now? Well, if you look at uh you know the trillions in resources that we impute to various states, obviously Russia largely due to Siberia is at the top I think at 62 or 65 trillion. I think the United States is at 40 or 45 trillion. Uh the rest of the uh countries tend to fall off precipitously. But then again, there's a lot we don't know about. You know, look at Norway for instance. The Norwegians just identified what people think in the business, the experts think may turn out to be the largest concentration of rare earths in Europe. The good news for the Norwegians, if you go north of Bergen, it's just a little off the coast, which means, you know, maybe uh within 500 meters of the shore and its depth is at 100 m, 150 m, 200 m. In other words, it's in shallow water. Now the Norwegian government decided that they do not plan to exploit that concentration of rare earth right now despite the fact that it it may be a a godsend in Europe. The reason given was environmental concerns. So you got to look at all the western countries, look at the environmental constraints, and you got to find people who are willing to compromise on those constraints. That doesn't mean that they're willing to poison the environment. That's simply not true. But you've got to at least uh deploy the financial strength to reshore critical minerals and defense components to your own soil. I think the United States is still a great bet in that connection. So is Canada. Uh I think that the Europeans, the European Union, if if they can go down a rational course and achieve some compromise uh on the subject of uh you know ex extracting minerals and resources from the ground based on the environmental impact they can do quite well. Africa of course I I pointed to Ethiopia. Ethiopia is very close to one of the largest reserves of mineral strength in the world or mineral wealth and that's central Africa in the Central African Republic. You know, it's a matter of we're we're back to stability that's political, stability that's social, stability that is price related, all of those things have to be created. And so even though you may have vast quantities of mineral wealth in your country just as the United States does, getting a rational framework in place, a long-term strategy that survives from administration to administration isn't easy. You know, there there's a friend of mine who is an ambassador to China and to Saudi Arabia. His name is Chaz Freeman and he points out that the problem in the United States is that every four years when we elect a new president, we tend to lobomize Washington because the new man comes in and he says, "Everything that came before me is terrible and bad. I'm going to eliminate it." Well, that we can't do business that way. We we've got to come to some sort of consensus to extract wealth from our mineral resources to build a better agricultural sector than the one we have today. We we don't get a fraction of the output that we really should from what we have. And then we look at the neighboring seas uh the coastal drilling that has to occur or the search for for rare earth. Right now, the Japanese are building robots that they want to operate several thousand feet down on the on the ocean floor that could produce a lot of uh rare earths. But the problem is you got to refine it down on the ocean floor. You can't afford to bring up millions of tons of uh soil that you have to sift through to find the rare earth. So I I think it looking at my own country, if you look at the potential, it's spectacular. Then you look at the political realities, it's a disaster. >> All right. I know that their time is slowly coming to an end. Would you be okay if I ask squeeze in one more question? >> Sure. Sure. >> Excellent. He who has the gold makes the rules. Is that still true today? And and do you think we will see a return of gold as a settlement currency anytime soon? >> Well, I think the Chinese have already moved in that direction. Uh they have gold vaults in Riad, gold vaults in Hong Kong in addition to the Shanghai gold exchange. I think there's a reason the Germans and the Japanese or the Germans and the Italians want to get their gold back in in their into their banks. I think the I think for uh one half of the world or whatever it turns out to be that bricks bricks represents they can back a currency with gold potentially a basket of uh metals precious metals. You know, the Germans were able to in the 1930s after Hitler took over, the Germans were able to finance their economic recovery and rebuild things on the basis not just of precious metals, but on the basis of the German economy itself, it's its rising productivity, its capacity to produce food, its success in so many different sectors. Perhaps something like that, some kind of conglomerate of those things. I don't know that the whole world can go exclusively to gold but whatever you end up with a component of it will very definitely be gold. I think that'll be true for us in the west but I don't know uh that we are going to go the same route. I think something like bitcoin in the west will actually become very important as a medium of exchange because I don't think we can entirely base everything on gold or even precious metals. Now I'm talking about the old Bretonwood system. The people that are part of that that are dependent upon it. I don't think they can move into bricks entirely and adopt the the other approach. But you know look anybody anybody who looks at the gold market today and thinks about the gold market for how many years decades that it wasn't stagnant but it was quiet. Now suddenly it's everything. A trip to the Singapore exchange will sober everyone up. But we've got, if we're going to get anywhere, we got to stop these pointless wars. I mean, we really do. We need adults in charge. We need them in Washington. We need them in London, and Paris, everywhere, because these wars are destructive for everything we want to achieve, everything we've discussed. And they're not necessary. There's no compelling reason to attack Iran. That's nonsense.