Lots More with Gregory Brew

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Gregory Brew (0:43)

I like to remain calm and collected during times of crisis.

Joe Weisenthal (0:47)

That seems to be a very rare trait, a very rare trait for anyone.

Gregory Brew (0:54)

Yeah, I mean, it's tough when things are happening so quickly.

And when something like this happens that really nobody saw coming was the thing. I mean, we were having meetings, I was having meetings the week before the Hamas attack on Israel, where the question of sort of Middle East tensions or Middle East crisis would come up. And the general feeling was like, no, things look pretty quiet. We've got Saudi, Iran normalization, oil seems to be flowing, although there's always the US. OPEC problems.

You have Saudis and Israelis kind of slowly moving towards normalization. Things seems pretty quiet. And then bam, something huge happens that nobody really anticipated.

Joe Weisenthal (1:35)

I did a deadlift. One, two, three.

Tracy Alloway (1:37)

Hegemony.

Hegemony. Barges.

Joe Weisenthal (1:42)

This is an after-school special, except.

Tracy Alloway (1:44)

I've decided I'm going to base my entire personality going forward on campaigning for a strategic pork reserve in the US.

Joe Weisenthal (1:50)

Where's the best squid ink pasta?

Tracy Alloway (1:52)

These are the important questions. Is it robots taking over the world?

Joe Weisenthal (1:55)

No, I think that like in a couple years, the AI will do a really good job of making the Odd Lots podcast.

And people will think, I don't really need to listen to Joe and Tracy anymore. We do have the perfect guest.

Tracy Alloway (2:10)

Well, in the meantime, this is Lots More.

Joe Weisenthal (2:13)

A weekly chat about whatever is on our minds.

Tracy Alloway (2:19)

This is one of those episodes where I feel like we need to get the recording date right at the top, which is October 18th, because things are moving so quickly. And we are going to be discussing the Israel-Hamas conflict. And there's just new headlines every hour, it feels like.

Joe Weisenthal (2:35)

So we are here in the studio with Gregory Brew. He is an analyst at the Eurasia Group. We have had him on the podcast before. We talked about Guyana last time.

Gregory Brew (2:44)

We did, yeah.

Tracy Alloway (2:45)

That was a happier story, I feel.

Joe Weisenthal (2:47)

Yes, the country with the fastest growing oil. But the current crisis that we are seeing, the war that is going on, this is right in your wheelhouse because it's geopolitical and your background, other than studying oil, which is what we talked to you about last time in the history of oil, you have an expert on the history of Iran as well.

Gregory Brew (3:06)

Yeah, no, yeah, it unfortunately happens to combine the two things that I've done the most work on. And whenever that happens, it generally doesn't tend to bode very well because it means there's crises, there's disruptions, there's tensions. And yeah, I mean, the crisis right now does seem to be contained to Israel and the violence in Gaza, but everyone is concerned about how this could spill over into oil.

You saw a very surprising reaction this morning from Iran's foreign minister making a wild claim about an oil embargo on Israel, suddenly sending oil prices up, surprisingly. So I think there's a lot of, I think there's jumpiness. I think there's concerns, broadly speaking, that this crisis could eventually spill over and start affecting oil.

Tracy Alloway (3:48)

Wait, you said it was kind of a wild threat. Why? And also, how crazy is it that we're talking about an oil embargo, like exactly 50 years after the Arab oil embargo that like contributed to 1970s inflation? I find that mind-blowing, like almost to the day.

Gregory Brew (4:05)

Right? Yeah. I mean, history does seem to be rhyming, right? I mean, the attack, the Hamas attack happened exactly 50 years and one day after the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 So obvious parallels. And I think, so yeah, turning things back a bit, Iran's foreign minister, who is currently in Saudi Arabia of all places, made kind of a wild claim in front of press. He said Iran was going to call on all Muslim countries, including countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Kuwait, to embargo oil shipments to Israel, very clearly trying to replicate what happened in 1973, or at least a version of it. And the reason why it strikes me, and I think a lot of other analysts who watch Iran and oil closely, why it strikes me as kind of a wild claim is that, first of all, Iran doesn't sell any oil to Israel. Iran and Israel are antagonists, they're competitors, you know.