Inside the Iran War with Steven Cook: What’s REALLY Happening? | The Real Eisman Playbook Ep 52

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

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Steve Eisman (0:35)

Hey, it's Steve Eisman. So, the only thing that matters these days, unfortunately, is the war in Iran. It is literally the only variable that moves markets up and down. On days where there's news that it seems like the war's gonna end, the market roars. And on days where things are getting bombed and infrastructure's getting bombed and oil prices go up, the market goes down. It's a unipolar market. And because of that, we decided that we needed to interview someone who has deep contacts in the region and is a real expert. And so today's guest is Steven Cook, who works at the Council of Foreign Relations. His expertise is the Middle East. He's written several books. His most recent book was something I read over the weekend. It was excellent. I highly recommend it. And it's gonna be a really interesting conversation to try and figure out fact versus fiction, what's going on, what's realistic, and what could happen. And I'll be back afterwards to talk about lessons learned.

Hi, this is Steve Eisman, and welcome to another episode of The Real Eisman Playbook. Well, the war continues. It's entered its fourth week, and it is literally the only thing the markets care about. So we're going to talk about the war today. But before I introduce my guests, let me lay the groundwork for what's happening. This is being recorded Monday afternoon on March 23rd. This morning, President Trump came out and announced that he was delaying for five days any bombing of Iranian oil infrastructure because he said that there have been talks between Iran and the United States and that they're going well. And so he put a five-day hiatus on that kind of bombing. The Iranians came out and said, there are no such talks, so no one really knows exactly what's going on, but at least for this Monday, there was an enormous rally in the markets. So today, we're going to talk all things Iran, all things Middle East, and we're going to do so with an expert, Steven Cook. Steven Cook, welcome to The Real Eisman Playbook. So let me give a quick bio and then we'll get started. So Steven Cook is the E&I Enrico Matei Senior Fellow for Middle East and African Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He's written several books. The last book that he wrote, which I read over the weekend, is called The End of Ambition, America's Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East, and came out, I think, in 2024

Steven A. Cook (3:14)

Yes, June 2024

Steve Eisman (3:16)

So let's just start with, I mean, we could talk, there are a thousand different things we could talk about.

Steven A. Cook (3:21)

A million different things.

Steve Eisman (3:22)

How do you think the war is going at this point? I mean, because it's very hard to tell.

Steven A. Cook (3:26)

It is hard to tell, and it's getting harder and harder to tell when these kinds of crises happen in the Middle East or elsewhere because streams of information are overloaded, there's lots of dis and misinformation, which is why I rely on mostly interlocutors within the Middle East.

Steve Eisman (3:42)

When you say interlocutors, you mean people on the ground?

Steven A. Cook (3:44)

People on the ground, whether it's friends, officials, friends who are officials, things like that across the region. Israelis, Gulfies across the region have been extremely helpful and great with their time in explaining what's happening. So what I have been able to tell is that both the United States and Israel have scored significant tactical gains against Iran. Iran's missile program have been destroyed in their capabilities to manufacture missiles, which was approaching about 200 a month, which is an incredible number, has been set back tremendously. The nuclear program has been set back tremendously. The drone program, all of that has been set back tremendously. And of course, we haven't really heard from Iran's proxies. They seem to have been intimidated by the amount of force that the United States and Israel have used against them.

Steve Eisman (4:36)

What do you say the proxies, I mean Hezbollah did strike? Hezbollah did strike a little bit.