#779: SPR Releases Fix Nothing with Anas Alhajji

**SPEAKER_1** (0:07)
You've had a dynamic where money has become freer than free.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:10)
When you talk about a Fed just going nuts, all the central banks going nuts. So it's all acting like safe haven.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:18)
I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:29)
I mean, that's part of the bold case for Bitcoin.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:31)
If you're not paying attention, you probably should be.

**Marty Bent** (0:36)
Dr. Anas Alhajji, welcome back to the show.

**Anas Alhajji** (0:39)
Thank you. Thank you. It's always a pleasure.

**Marty Bent** (0:42)
It's been a while since you were last on, and you haven't been on since the war in Iran started. I was rereading through the notes of our last recording, and it was when the saber rattling around Iran was really beginning to heat up. And the last time we spoke, he called Iran's nuclear standoff the never-ending crisis, and said sanctions cannot take Iran's exports anywhere close to zero. We're not looking at a conflict that appears to escape the narrow Iran-Israeli frame and spread into arteries of the global energy trade. But before we go into price, just give us the map. It's obviously been evolving, started between the US-Israel and Iran in recent weeks. It looks like the Houthis in Yemen have entered the fray in the Red Sea.
There's been a memorandum of understanding. Ceasefire on, off, on, off. Oil prices up above 100, down to low 70s, high 60s. Back in the Yemen check today, I would imagine 80s or 90s.
What is the map looking like today?

**Anas Alhajji** (1:47)
Well, a couple of things before we look at the map, because there are some important issues that people must understand that what we call the Iranian regime is not a unified regime. That there are people who wants to negotiate. There are people who are sincere and they want to build the country and they want to build a nation. There are the others who are after themselves. There are elements of the IRGC, which is the Revolutionary Guard, who benefited greatly from the sanctions over the last three decades. They literally make billions of dollars, and sanctions enable them to control the economy of Iraq and everything that comes in and out. For them, a peaceful resolution basically will literally put them aside and they don't want that. For the last 10 years or so, they've been trying really hard to derail any negotiations.
When you see their reaction and you see the attacks, you can tell where the negotiations are going from the severity of their attacks, which means that the more severe the attack, that means the negotiation were doing very well, and they want to derail them. And the issue right now is with those guys. But the bigger issue is, it just happened those guys who are now gaining control in Tehran, they are the international arm of the regime, which means that they are connected to the Houthis, they are connected to Hezbollah, they are connected to the others in Iraq and other places, even to the drug cartels in South America and other places. Those guys do not care about the future of Iran or building a nation. Those guys behave like drug cartels, exactly like drug cartels. Look how the drug cartels for 80 years right now, the United States has been fighting them. Until now, they were not able to conquer them, and they are awfully rich, they are well-trained, they have the most advanced all kinds of armors in the world, they have all kinds of weapons, and they fight.
Those guys are behaving the same. What are the problems? The problem is the US is sending a regular army, a regular Navy trying to fight in their thinking, a regular army and a regular Navy, and that is not the case. You are sending a regular army to fight a guerrilla war or a militia, and that does not add up. That's one of the mistakes that's been done. The other mistake basically being done by the Trump administration is, they failed to understand the motives because they thought, oh, well, those guys are after building Iran and the nation, and therefore, we can do this and we can do this and we can't. No, they are not after that. They are literally after control and money. And if you go for a peaceful resolution, that means you wipe out all their income sources, and that does not fit, and that's what the Trump administration has to understand. So the Trump administration being after them, in the recent attack for 14 days, they've been after those guys. Notice that they did not kill any of the negotiating team.