Defense Alliance: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan &... Iran?! | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

**Demetri Kontakos** (0:00)
Hey, everybody. Welcome to a new episode of Eyes On Geopolitics. I'm joined today by Andy Milburn, Mick Mulroy, Jon Hackett, and I'm Demetri Kontakos. Happy Sunday to everybody. A lot going on as usual. It never ends. We never have just some feel-good stories about, I don't know, soldiers coming home to happiness and not being stuck on an aircraft carrier for 270 days.
Also, a little bit of funny, we clipped your story, Jonathan, about going to visit the aircraft carrier with the Crown Prince of Jordan and the Ambassador of Jordan. A lot of Navy folks got very, very upset about it in our comments and stuff like that. I'd just like to say, I don't give a shit. It's the true story, right? Jon, it is what it is. The Navy traditions seem to be extremely antiquated and could use a bit of a refresh.

**Jon Hackett** (0:57)
It's also interesting, who are the Navy people that complain? It's the officers because they see what they could lose, what they stand to lose if things were equalized like the Marine Corps where officers are suffering just like the enlisted, sometimes suffering a lot more than the enlisted. In the Navy side, that is not how it's designed to work. Maybe it does work that way, but that's not how it's designed to work.

**Demetri Kontakos** (1:16)
I think we are a Marine Corps propaganda podcast. I think that's official. Forget the CIA propaganda and everything else. Or the Atlantic Council stuff. No, it's Marine Corps propaganda. All right, so a lot happening. Iran's cooking. The thing that popped to the surface for me specifically was yesterday, Barak Ravi reported that 40 tankers rode through the Strait of Hormuz, 16 some-odd million barrels of oil. And then that was quickly debunked by satellite data and other news organizations. And as for, I get Barak Ravi, he's got to keep his sources and stuff like that. But I feel like he could be a little bit more of a reporter and a journalist rather than a stenographer.
And it really does seem like, you know, it's an info war between both sides. And the US media seems to be just as complicit in it as the Iranian media. And it's really tough to get like accurate information. You always have to question everything and things like that. That was the thing that really popped out to me. It's like that meme of the general, like everything's fine and everything in the background is rubble. You know what I mean? That's what it feels like, frankly, from the US side.
We're still in the same kind of holding pattern. So I want to ask you guys, what are you guys tracking exactly? Mick, hit us off. Start us off.

**Mick Mulroy** (2:41)
So, I mean, the way I understand Kepler, for example, tracks ships, yeah, they probably are turning their transponders off during going through the street, but they're going to turn back on.
So it seems like, I mean, you don't have to be a maritime specialist to figure out, well, that ship was there, then it was way over here. So they can just count them.

**Demetri Kontakos** (3:04)
Yeah.

**Mick Mulroy** (3:04)
So I don't understand how that made, because 20 is the magic number, right? 60 is almost there. So if that was the case, like we wouldn't have the energy crisis that we, I mean, we have somewhat of a depreciation, but we wouldn't have the crisis. So I wish it was the case. I'm sure some ships are getting through the southern route. That's why Iran was pushing Oman to get agreement, because going through the southern route is not in Iran's interest. But if it was at anywhere near that level, then why would we still be in this? So I just think, I think the tracking systems that you already have in reference D is the only thing you can really go on, because they're not biased, they're not trying to promote one side of this to the other. That I can tell, it's simply tracking ships. And again, once you get through the strait out in the Gulf of Oman and beyond, why wouldn't you turn your tracking system back on? And then you could see where how many ships actually got through. So I don't know why media, I mean, it's kind of a simplistic concept, but I don't know if media isn't just highlighting that.
And on a broader picture, I would say, and it's something I've been promoting for those that keep track of that, is if we're not going to do the military escalation, which doesn't seem like it would be effective, and I think that's what the intelligence community is saying, then the economic one is kind of the only alternative, unless we're just going to throw up our hands and go away, and I don't think we should do that. So, is it tomorrow at 2 a.m., 2 p.m. Eastern? Secretary Bessette is going to announce all the new secondary sections. And from anything I'm hearing, it's going to include what they call the teapot refineries in China. That's going to be the primary ones. It's not the government, but it's close, and it probably will piss China off. And it's going to be all of the mechanism that goes into the shadow fleet. So the ports, the ships, the insurances of the ships, the captains, the crews, the financial institute that transfers money, and it's going to really push on other countries, including Pakistan, to do everything they can to not allow the companies in their country to facilitate the trade of the energy so they can raise money. So I think it will have an impact right now.