SPECIAL REPORT: Is The US At Risk Of War With Iran? | Ryan Bohl, RANE

**Adam Taggart** (0:00)
And we should be live. Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm Thoughtful Money founder and your host, welcoming you back here for a special report livestream on the situation in Iran. We are joined by RANE's Mideast analyst, Ryan Bohl, who's been with us before. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us. I know this is an incredibly busy time for you, that events are developing in real time as we speak here. Very much appreciate you making the time to talk to the Thoughtful Money audience.

**Ryan Bohl** (0:28)
Yeah, not a problem, Adam. Happy to be here.

**Adam Taggart** (0:30)
All right. Well, first, happy New Year. I think the beard is new since we talked. I like it.

**Ryan Bohl** (0:36)
This is my winter form. So yeah, for six months of the year, I go without it and then the other half that I freeze is where I got to grow it back out.

**Adam Taggart** (0:43)
It's where your younger brother shows up for six months? All right. Well, look, let's just dive right in here. I get a bunch of questions and then we'll try to open it up if we've got time for the viewing audience here. As best you understand it right now with the information we have, what exactly is happening on the ground in Iran right now?

**Ryan Bohl** (1:03)
Yeah, we are really in a fluid situation. So these by the hour updates, I think, are really important for everyone to understand and monitor. And what we're getting out of Iran on the ground itself are reports that the protest movement has ebbed, is not finished, but it is largely suppressed. The Iranians have admitted up to 2,000 casualties, and that includes their security forces of an uncertain number. Other Iranian opposition outlets, like Iran International, have been saying it's up to 12,000. I think that we're going to be looking at a 2,000 to 12,000 range when all is said and done. Now, like all authoritarian regimes, information is a scarce commodity. So we'll never know the full extent. But we do know that there have been high casualties and that the protest movement seems to have subsided at the moment. Caveat with that is that tomorrow is Friday. That's a Shia Muslim holy day. People come out of their mosques and they tend to protest as well. So if we're going to see another phase of this, it would start again tomorrow. So that's what's happening on the ground there. The Islamic Republic is still very firmly in control. We haven't seen any cities fall. We haven't seen any territory change hands. And most importantly, we haven't seen any security forces, or elites, split with the regime, either by criticizing it or, in the case of security forces, by joining protesters. So the domestic situation seems to be more stable than it was a week ago, where it was a very serious challenge to their power and legitimacy. But that's where we are in Iran itself. Then abroad, when we're looking at what happened last night is the Iranians declared a no-fly zone over their country. They issued aviation notices not to go over Iran. That seems to be in reaction to some American military movements that were not about striking Iran last night. Now, it's possible the Americans are moving assets around to try to find a way to strike Iran without alienating Gulf Arab allies. That's something that we can discuss later about what the Gulf Arab position is in all of this. But there were no strikes last night. The United States is poised to strike Iran at any time. They have enough assets in Turkey, Qatar, the UAE, in Bahrain's 5th Fleet to be able to conduct very limited strikes on Iran, whatever targets they might choose. B-2 bombers can be flown out of Missouri and in 24 hours can strike any target, even without the bunker busters. They can use conventional weapons, tomahawks, etc. that can come off of B-2.
The assets are there, but we do have a report that the USS Abraham Lincoln is being redeployed from the Pacific to the Persian Gulf. It'll take about a week for it to get there. If they are waiting for more significant assets to come in to play, so they can carry out larger airstrikes, that's a key signpost to watch is when that carrier arrives. After all, that was part of the Venezuela operation. The Gerald Ford had to arrive and was situated. It was part of that operation to extract Maduro. So if they're looking for something bigger, that carrier will matter. Limited strikes are always on the table, could happen at any time and they could happen while we're talking right now. But a bigger operation requires more significant buildup and that will take time. Then the last part is some of the alerts that we have seen. Reportedly, Al Udeid Air Base and Qatar, their alert has been diminished. While there are still notices from like State Department and others about being concerned about being in the region if you're a citizen, those are not at a critical level where they're ordering evacuations. We're not seeing the widespread embassy evacuations that we saw last June before the United States joined the Israeli campaign against the Iranians. So we don't have signposts for a major escalation, but we always have this tripwire for us within the region that allows for relatively localized escalations if that's what the administration chooses to do.