Transcript [00:00] Is the straight of Hormuz actually open? [00:03] That's what we're going to investigate [00:05] in this video. We're going to talk about [00:07] where this this aspect of the war, this [00:10] this war of claims where Iran claims [00:12] that the Straight of Hormuz is not open. [00:14] The Americans claim that it is open. [00:16] That's what we're going to be looking at [00:17] in this video. We're going to make sense [00:19] of all of it. So, fasten your seat [00:22] belts. This is one, you know, get a [00:24] drink, sit down, and uh and you're we're [00:27] going to learn a lot in this video. Here [00:28] we go. [00:30] So on Tuesday [00:33] uh I'm sorry on it mentions Tuesday on [00:36] on Saturday [00:38] two days ago US energy secretary Chris [00:41] Wright put out a number that got shared [00:44] everywhere and he said that in on one [00:47] day last week the the US military helped [00:52] move over 15 million barrels of oil out [00:56] through the straight of Hormuz. He said [00:57] that the 7-day average was running over [00:59] 8 million here. Let's just look let's [01:01] just take a look at his at his uh at his [01:04] post on X. What he actually wrote here, [01:06] it's up on the screen. On Tuesday, the [01:09] US military helped ship over 15 million [01:11] barrels of oil and products out of the [01:12] straight of Hormuz. Combined with [01:15] pipelines, the total leaving the region [01:17] is closer to 20 million barrels. So he's [01:19] saying that there's 5 million barrels [01:20] going through the pipelines, the Saudi [01:22] and Emirati pipelines. [01:24] 7-day average of oil leaving the [01:26] straight is over 8 million barrels a [01:29] day. So that's his claim. His claim is [01:31] they're averaging 8 million barrels a [01:32] day through the straight of Hormuz. And [01:34] that 15 million barrels a day came out [01:37] in one day on Tuesday. Then he writes, [01:39] "Make no mistake, thanks to the US Navy, [01:42] oil is flowing through the straight of [01:45] Hormuz." [01:47] Okay, that's uh that's what he claimed. [01:50] So this is a triumphant statement. It's [01:53] the US government saying with numbers [01:56] that the Navy has broken Iran's grip on [01:58] Straits of Hormuz. And if that's true, [02:01] then it's a very big deal. But here's [02:03] the problem, and this is why I wanted to [02:06] make this video. Two days after that [02:09] post, the Wall Street Journal, so today, [02:11] the Wall Street Journal published a [02:13] piece that goes through in detail, [02:16] uh, why the people whose actual job it [02:19] is to track these things, uh, are, shall [02:23] we say, a little bit skeptical. They're [02:25] not so sure that what Chris Wright is [02:28] saying is actually right because they're [02:30] not seeing anything close to those [02:32] numbers. These are people who count oil [02:34] tankers, you know, these monitoring [02:36] agencies. And once you start pulling on [02:38] that thread, uh, you end up in a pretty [02:41] interesting place. There's a genuine fog [02:43] of war going on here. You see, [02:46] Washington has a real incentive to in to [02:49] make sure that the number the amount of [02:52] oil coming out that they're claiming, [02:53] the number of ships passing through is [02:55] as high as possible. And meanwhile, of [02:57] course, the Iranians have a reason to [03:00] suppress that number. [03:03] And let's take a look at what the Wall [03:04] Street Journal says because uh I think [03:06] the framing that they chose for this is [03:08] exactly right. And there's a lot of [03:09] interesting information in this article. [03:12] So let's take a look at uh just a couple [03:15] passages. It's a very long piece. So I'm [03:17] going to read a few pieces of it. I'm [03:19] going to summarize other parts of it. [03:20] Here's what it says. US says oil is [03:22] pouring through Hormuz. Trackers can't [03:24] find it. industry industry firms that [03:27] count ships, oil output, and imports [03:31] aren't able to verify the full volume of [03:33] oil the US claims is getting through [03:35] Iran's chokeold. But it's a little more [03:37] complicated than that. [03:40] The Trump administration says large [03:42] volumes of oil are slipping through the [03:44] straight of Hormuz. The trackers whose [03:46] job it is to count the world's oil [03:48] shipments see much less. Energy [03:50] Secretary Chris Wright said last week [03:52] that the US military had helped uh 15 [03:54] million passed through uh on Tuesday, 8 [03:57] million a day. Earlier this month, [03:59] Wright said the 7-day average stood at [04:01] around 9 million barrels a day. The [04:04] count from commercial ship trackers [04:06] tells a different story with estimates [04:08] ranging from roughly 2 million to 6 [04:12] million barrels a day. [04:15] Oh, [04:19] so 2 to6 million versus Chris Wright's [04:23] uh 8 to 15 million. That's a gap of [04:25] double double sometimes triple. Okay, [04:28] this is and this isn't coming from one [04:30] skeptical analyst either. The the piece [04:33] runs through basically every major [04:35] tanker tracking firm that exists. KPLER [04:39] puts August exports through Hormuz at [04:41] about 2.3 million barrels a day, down [04:45] from 4.9 million in July. Uh, Huak, I [04:50] don't know how to pronounce it, Huax, [04:52] puts the range at 2 to 5 million. Rory [04:55] Johnston, who runs a firm called [04:57] Commodity Context, has his latest 7-day [05:00] average at about 4 million. [05:03] That's still half of eight [05:07] that uh that Wright is claiming lately. [05:09] And he and Rory Johnson even expects to [05:12] revise that upward later once dark [05:16] sailing ships resurface on tracking [05:17] system. So there are these dark sailing [05:19] ships. We'll talk about them more in a [05:21] in a moment. Um so he's saying that it's [05:24] entirely possible that there's well or [05:26] likely that there's actually more than [05:28] the 4 million. So it's a little higher. [05:30] Only one firm, Vortexa, comes close to [05:33] the administration's number, and only if [05:35] you cherrypick a very short window. Its [05:37] 7-day average briefly peaked at 9.2 [05:41] million barrels a day, but its 28-day [05:44] average, which the company itself says [05:46] is the more reliable number, which makes [05:47] sense. It's over a longer period, it [05:50] sits around 6 million. So, that's [05:51] getting close to what Wright said, which [05:53] is 8 million. But here's the line from [05:56] Rory Johnston in the Wall Street Journal [05:58] piece. That is, I think, the most [05:59] important sentence in the whole article. [06:02] Um, let me pull it up here on the [06:04] screen. [06:06] What do we got? Uh, yeah, let's let's [06:08] get it here. It's down here. [06:10] What's remarkable is how similar Tanker [06:13] Tracker's numbers are. You'd expect [06:15] someone to have figured out a way to [06:17] validate the White House numbers if [06:19] there was a way, said Rory Johnson, [06:21] founder of Commodity Context, an oil [06:23] market research firm. As of yet, I [06:25] haven't seen anyone do it. [06:29] Okay. So, he's not saying that they're [06:32] lying. What he's saying is, look, [06:36] everyone who independently counts this [06:38] stuff for a living using different [06:39] methods and different data keeps landing [06:41] in roughly the same range, and none of [06:44] them can find a way to get anywhere near [06:46] Washington's numbers, no matter how they [06:47] slice it. Now, to be fair to Secretary [06:49] Wright, there's a real explanation [06:52] offered for the gap, and it's not crazy. [06:54] This is all in the Wall Street Journal [06:55] piece. It was just released a few hours [06:57] ago. Um, and it's these dark ships. I [07:02] mentioned that before. Ships are going [07:03] dark. What does that mean? That a lot of [07:05] tankers are shutting off their [07:07] transponders, the radio signal that [07:09] broadcasts a ship identity and position [07:12] that you usually is a necessity at sea. [07:15] They're shutting off the transponders [07:17] specifically so that they can't be [07:18] tracked crossing the Straits of Hormuz. [07:21] And there might be a lot of ships doing [07:23] that. So analysts then have what they [07:26] have to do to account for these is they [07:29] have to reconstruct those voyages from [07:31] from satellite imagery that they get [07:33] later on once the ship reappears [07:36] somewhere else with its transponder back [07:38] on. And the US military has sources that [07:41] no one else has. It has radar aircraft [07:44] direct communication with these ships in [07:46] transit. Remember the the US military is [07:48] also helping these ships avoid the [07:51] Iranian uh behavior. [07:55] So they could have meaning again he's [07:58] not saying that the administration is [08:00] lying. Okay? If if if where you are [08:02] right now and what I'm saying is oh look [08:04] you know the Trump administration [08:06] secretary right is lying about how much [08:07] oil is coming out. That's not [08:08] necessarily the case. What he's saying [08:11] here is it's entirely possible that [08:12] there's a lot of ships under the current [08:14] environment where the Americans are [08:16] escorting ships through and helping [08:17] them. Maybe part of that is that a lot [08:20] of them are turning off their [08:21] transponders. [08:23] Okay. And the US military has has ways [08:26] of knowing ships passing through that [08:28] these trackers don't know. Okay. So, [08:30] it's entirely possible that the Pentagon [08:32] is seeing real ships that commercial [08:34] trackers are missing. [08:37] But, and this is the honest caveat that [08:40] the article makes, and I want to make it [08:42] too, possible doesn't mean confirmed. [08:46] Because there's one more check that the [08:48] article brings up that I think is the [08:51] most damning for Washington's numbers. [08:55] You see, you can't put oil on a tanker [09:00] without meaning you can't ship oil on a [09:02] tanker without loading it onto the [09:04] tanker first and loading figures from [09:08] Gulf ports themselves which are measured [09:11] completely separately from tankers [09:14] crossing the the straight. Those numbers [09:17] are also available. Those figures are [09:19] also available and they come in low. So [09:21] Iraq, which has no bypass pipeline, [09:25] loaded only 1.1 million barrels a day [09:27] this month, which is less than a third [09:29] of its pre-war rate. And so if if the [09:32] oil, and it goes through some other [09:33] numbers, if the oil isn't being loaded [09:36] onto ships in the first place, it can't [09:38] later be showing up crossing the [09:40] straight in the volumes that Secretary [09:42] Wright is claiming. [09:44] Now, before I go further, I want to [09:46] explain something that's in this [09:47] article, and I I think it's uh it's the [09:50] single best piece of evidence in the [09:52] whole story, and it has to be explained. [09:56] So, let me build it up from scratch [09:57] because this is really important to [09:59] understanding this whole picture because [10:00] the real picture, we're not so much [10:01] interested in this or that number of [10:03] oil. We want to know, you know, where [10:06] are things with the straight of hormones [10:08] really, [10:10] who's in charge? So imagine you want [10:14] oil. [10:16] There are basically [10:18] two different ways to buy it. [10:21] One is you call up a supplier and you [10:23] see and you say, "I need a tanker full [10:26] of oil delivered to my refinery this [10:28] week." Okay? So you're buying barrels of [10:31] oil and they're changing hands right [10:32] now. They're going to deliver oil to [10:34] you. Great. That's called the physical [10:37] market. The other way to buy oil is you [10:40] go to a financial exchange and you buy a [10:44] contract that says I agree to buy oil at [10:47] a set price delivered three or six [10:51] months from now. So no oil is going to [10:53] move today. It's a promise about a [10:56] future date and that's what's called a [10:58] futures contract. If you're ever [10:59] watching the news and you hear about oil [11:02] futures, that's a price on a futures [11:05] contract. Okay? So at any given moment [11:07] there are two different prices floating [11:09] around, pardon the pun, for what's [11:12] basically the same stuff. There's the [11:16] price for oil it to be delivered today, [11:19] the physical price, and then there's the [11:21] price that's locked in for oil delivered [11:24] months from now. Now, normally those two [11:26] prices are pretty close to each other. [11:29] But when a war or some other disruption [11:31] makes it genuinely difficult to get oil [11:33] out of the region right now, people who [11:36] need it today will pay a much higher [11:39] price. They'll pay a premium for it [11:41] right now, but the futures price might [11:45] not move. Why? Why wouldn't the futures [11:47] price move in that situation? If the [11:50] futures price stays around the same, but [11:52] the today price, the physical price [11:54] jumps, that means that traders are [11:58] betting that the war is not going to be [12:01] long-term and that it's going to be [12:03] resolved by the time that that future [12:05] contract comes due. So, they're the [12:08] futures price is similar to the regular [12:11] price because they say the war is going [12:12] to be over and the prices will go back [12:14] to normal. the the physical price is [12:17] high because right now oil is scarce. [12:20] Okay, got that? That's the difference [12:22] between physical price and futures [12:24] price. So earlier in this war that uh [12:28] you know that immediate need premium [12:30] this is like during the height of the [12:32] war when oil prices are spiking it got [12:35] meaning that uh [12:38] that the difference between the physical [12:41] price the immediate need premium price [12:45] and the futures price got as wide as a [12:48] difference of $36 a barrel. That gap is [12:53] a measure of the market's uh ga gauge of [12:58] how much actual physical pain the [13:00] disruption is causing right now today. [13:03] Okay. So you have meaning earlier in the [13:05] war we had this massive gap. Futures [13:07] price was $36 [13:10] at its peak lower than the physical [13:13] price. Okay. That gap has now shrunk to [13:17] under $6. [13:19] And separately, the futures price [13:21] itself, what the market expects oil to [13:24] cost months from now, has fallen as well [13:28] from a very high price of $160 a barrel [13:31] in late March. That was the peak of it. [13:33] And that was when Trump was getting [13:34] skittish and looking to end the war [13:36] quickly because he had to get the price [13:37] down, right? That's end of March. The [13:39] ceasefire goes into effect April 8th. [13:41] Right? the end of March is all the way [13:43] up there at $160 for the physical price. [13:48] And I'm sorry, the futures price, the [13:50] futures price was $160 a barrel in late [13:52] March and now it's around $97. [13:55] So you put those things together and the [13:57] physical right now price has come down [14:00] even faster than the futures price. [14:04] Okay, let me say that again. The [14:06] physical right now price has come down [14:08] faster than the futures price. In plain [14:11] terms, the I need it today, [14:15] whatever it costs panic price has cooled [14:18] off dramatically. [14:20] And that's a that's a that's an [14:22] important signal. What is that? What [14:23] what is that? Now [14:27] remember that is not a government press [14:29] release. That's not the secretary of [14:30] energy saying something. Okay, that is [14:33] traders. That is the market. That is [14:36] people who are risking their own money [14:37] on what's happening. [14:39] So, here's how I'd honestly put these [14:41] two pieces of evidence together because [14:43] I don't want to overstate either one. [14:46] The pricing data tells you, let me sum [14:48] this up. If you got confused here, let [14:50] me just give you the bottom line of [14:51] this. What the pricing data tells you is [14:54] that the markets are no longer pricing [14:58] in an acute, desperate physical [15:00] shortage. Meaning, there's no there's no [15:02] they're not looking at like a panic [15:05] current shortage. Brent crude is sitting [15:07] around $90, which is which is a little [15:10] high compared to o compared to before [15:13] the war. It's high compared to before [15:15] the war, but it's well off the wartime [15:17] highs. [15:19] And that's a sign that the worst of the [15:21] physical panic has passed. But but the [15:24] pricing data does not by itself [15:28] prove that Secretary Wright's 8 to 15 [15:31] million barrel numbers are correct. [15:34] Those are two separate questions. [15:35] Meaning is the market less panicked [15:38] right now than it was earlier is a [15:41] completely different question from how [15:44] many barrels are coming out of the [15:46] street of Hormuza each day. [15:48] Okay, those are two separate things and [15:51] we need to keep them separate. [15:54] Okay, now let's bring in now what's [15:58] happening on Iran's side because because [16:02] you know two stories [16:04] broke this week that are a direct [16:07] continuation of this whole saga that [16:10] have to do with what what Iran is doing. [16:13] And I've made a number of videos about [16:15] Oman and the Iran relationship. And uh [16:18] you know early on if you remember months [16:20] ago when when it first came up that that [16:22] Oman was going to cooperate with Iran on [16:24] the straits of Hormuz [16:27] um I I pointed out that Iran can't [16:30] assert control total control of the [16:32] straight of Hormuz on its own. No one [16:34] would accept that. So it's it's it needs [16:37] Oman for the legitimacy and it needs [16:40] Oman Omani cooperation [16:43] and that's how Oman has gotten dragged [16:45] into this. But I mean how willful they [16:48] are that they are negotiating with them. [16:50] So Iran just created something. This is [16:55] this is their new thing. They created [16:56] something called the Persian Gulf Strait [16:58] Authority. A new Iranian body that on [17:01] Monday today put out a warning that [17:04] vessels violating what it calls its [17:06] transit arrangements through the strait [17:08] face fines, detention or confiscation. [17:12] Okay, that's what they announced today. [17:15] Now, here's the interesting part. [17:18] The Wall Street Journal also mentions [17:20] this. The Wall Street Journal mentions [17:22] that [17:23] uh that today Iran threatened to fine or [17:26] detain 46 ships it said had broken its [17:29] rules for transiting the strait. So, it [17:32] is it is issuing these warnings. [17:35] Um so, Iran is asserting its you know [17:39] its its sovereignty over the straight of [17:41] Hormuz. There you go. And it's saying [17:43] that it's going to charge tolls. The [17:45] second thing is Oman. Oman's foreign [17:48] minister say Badr al-Busedi [17:52] is in Thran right now today specifically [17:56] for talks on Hormuz. Now remember Trump [17:58] just announced that no one can have any [17:59] trade or any any any relations with them [18:02] uh on on a financial level, economic [18:04] level. And today their foreign minister [18:07] is in is in Thran to talk about [18:09] hormones. [18:11] And um [18:13] you know the [18:17] look I I want to be careful here. [18:20] This doesn't mean that Oman has agreed [18:22] to anything. [18:24] And Oman has spent a lot of the last few [18:27] months denying that it has any joint [18:29] control arrangement over the straits [18:31] while at the same time having lots of [18:33] conversations with Iran. [18:36] So it's unclear where the Omanis are. [18:38] And we've heard the threats from the [18:39] Trump administration that if Oman is [18:41] cooperates with Iran, they're going to [18:43] get bombed. Whatever. We I we don't know [18:46] what Oman is up to. But what it does [18:49] confirm is that Iran has succeeded in [18:52] pulling Oman into this situation [18:56] and uh and you know because the you know [18:58] the Omanis are continuing to have these [19:00] negotiations with Iran even now that [19:02] like theou is dead and the and the [19:05] Americans have threatened them and the [19:07] Americans have said that that no one [19:08] should be dealing with them. The Omanis [19:09] are still meeting with the Iranians. [19:14] Okay. [19:16] Now here's where it gets interesting. [19:17] We're going to look at some Iranian [19:18] state media now because they're they are [19:21] pushing a specific narrative and I want [19:24] to read it to you so you can hear [19:25] exactly how they're framing it. And this [19:27] is going to be from Wana, one of our [19:28] favorite Iranian state media outlets. Uh [19:32] let's pull that story up. [19:34] Where is it? Here we go. Here's our uh [19:39] here's our Iranian state media outlet. [19:42] Iran uses undetectable methods to [19:44] monitor maritime movements. H that's the [19:48] headline. Strange headline. [19:51] So in this story it says that an IRGC [19:53] spokesman named Sadar Hussein Mohabi [19:57] he's quoted as saying well you know let [19:59] me just read you the quote here. [20:02] Here Mohei also highlighted Iran's [20:05] ability to monitor maritime movements. [20:11] Now, let's read the first few [20:12] paragraphs. IRGC spokesman Sardar Hosen [20:14] Mohabi has described Donald Trump's [20:16] recent remarks about the straight of [20:18] Hormuz as baseless, unrealistic, and [20:20] fanciful, saying that even members of [20:22] the US administration immediately made [20:24] comments suggesting they did not take [20:26] the president's remarks seriously. [20:29] Moi said media outlets can independently [20:31] verify claims about the Straight of [20:33] Hormuz. If the United States claims that [20:35] the strait belongs to it or that it has [20:36] kept the waterway open and allows ships [20:38] to pass through, journalists can use [20:41] satellite data and other available [20:42] resources to monitor vessel traffic and [20:44] establish the facts for the [20:46] international public. [20:49] The IRGC spokesman said that if the [20:51] straight of Hormuz is truly under US [20:53] control, Washington should demonstrate [20:55] its presence in the region and prove its [20:58] claims on the ground. He added that [20:59] satellite tracking and vessel monitoring [21:01] data are available independently to [21:03] independently assess such claims. [21:05] Correct. We've been talking about that. [21:07] Movie also highlighted Iran's ability to [21:09] monitor maritime movement, saying that [21:11] Iran's surveillance does not rely solely [21:14] on the satellites that the United States [21:16] believes it can track. He said Iran has [21:18] other methods of monitoring and [21:20] identifying vessels that the other side [21:22] may not yet be able to detect. We have [21:24] secret methods of identifying vessels. [21:26] Yeah. Okay. Maybe if Iran did not, and [21:29] look, look what he says here. There's a [21:30] this I love the logic. If Iran did not [21:33] have the ability to monitor maritime [21:34] movements, how could it strike the [21:36] sensitive points of vessels? He said, [21:39] Moi added that when a missile hits a [21:41] sensitive point or the engine room of a [21:43] vessel and disables it, this [21:44] demonstrates Iran's intelligence [21:46] capabilities and its ability to [21:48] accurately identify and track targets. [21:50] So they're making this like logical case [21:52] to prove that they're still in control [21:55] of the straits of Hormuz, [21:58] right? [22:00] So he's saying that their precision [22:01] strikes on tankers are proof of their [22:03] intelligence capabilities, [22:06] right? And he also says he he also says [22:09] in this piece that the US warship [22:12] presence in the Persian Gulf has [22:15] completely withdrawn and American assets [22:17] are now 400 kilometers away. [22:21] And he call and and as you saw he calls [22:23] Trump's claims about controlling the [22:25] strait baseless, unrealistic and [22:28] fanciful. [22:30] Right? That's so that's your Iranian [22:32] state media. That's their claim. Good. [22:35] We have that. [22:38] Now, the specific claim he made that the [22:41] US Navy has withdrawn from the Gulf is [22:43] checkable and it is false. Think back to [22:46] the Wall Street Journal piece. It in [22:48] that Wall Street Journal piece, it cites [22:50] the UK Maritime Trade Operations, UK [22:52] MTO, which is affiliated with the Royal [22:54] Navy, not the Pentagon, not Chris [22:57] Wright. It's an independent British [22:59] military body. And it reports that the [23:01] US facilitated 74 transits through [23:04] Hormuz over just 3 days last week, [23:07] roughly 25 a day. That means that [23:09] they're being escorted. They're being [23:11] helped through by the US Navy. [23:14] That data does not tell us how many of [23:16] those were oil tankers or how many [23:18] barrels they carried. That's a sep [23:20] that's not that's not this conversation. [23:22] But you know and the UK MTO is not [23:26] claiming anything about how much oil but [23:28] the presence itself [23:31] US warships actively escorting transits [23:34] through the strait is confirmed by the [23:36] UK MTO. So the exact uh you know again [23:40] we don't know how much oil is coming out [23:41] but the Iranian claim that the US Navy [23:43] is gone is simply not true. [23:47] So look, neither side's headline, not [23:50] the Iranians and honestly not the [23:53] Americans, not Secretary Wrights, is can [23:55] survive full scrutiny intact. I'm not [23:57] comparing the the absurd propaganda of [24:00] the Iranian regime with a statement by [24:02] the US Secretary of of Energy. I'm just [24:05] saying that, you know, you know, both [24:09] governments are fighting a real war and [24:12] a numbers war. And there's a lot of [24:17] messaging that goes into this, [24:18] especially if if Trump is interested not [24:20] only in the price today, but also in the [24:22] futures price. He's interested in the [24:24] whole oil market. There's an interest in [24:26] in saying that that number is as big as [24:29] possible. [24:31] Now, I don't want to leave you with the [24:33] impression that Iran has zero leverage [24:35] here, that America has totally won this [24:37] thing [24:39] because, you know, Iran has attacked [24:41] ships using the protected Omani side [24:43] route as recently as a few weeks ago. [24:46] Can they still? I don't know. [24:51] uh Gulf officials in Kuwait, Iraq, and [24:53] the Emirates say that some tankers are [24:56] still getting through under separate [24:57] arrangements directly with Iran. That [24:59] they are cooperating with them somewhat, [25:02] meaning that not everything moving [25:03] through the Strait of Hormuz is under US [25:05] protection, which would imply that the [25:07] Iranians still have some capabilities. [25:09] Ship trackers estimate that roughly a [25:12] third of the vessels crossing the [25:13] straight have used the Iranian route, [25:17] the northern side of the waterway. That [25:19] is under full that is that the Iranians [25:22] have said that that that's their route. [25:27] And and we should also add in that that [25:29] Mosen Resi, who's now like the top [25:31] military guy there, the IRGC, he [25:34] threatened this weekend that even the [25:36] Saudi and Emirati pipelines that were [25:39] built to bypass the straight of Hormuz [25:42] where roughly 5 million barrels are [25:43] going through a day um could be targeted [25:47] if the US keeps up its economic pressure [25:49] campaign. So the the threats to oil in [25:54] the straight of Hormuz of oil coming out [25:56] of the Gulf are not only about the [25:57] straight of Hormuz. There's also that [25:59] threat and the Iranians still do have [26:01] some kinetic capability. So here's the [26:04] honest full picture and I think it's [26:06] actually more useful to you than than uh [26:10] you know than any of these statements. [26:14] Iran has clearly lost significant [26:17] control of the straits compared to where [26:19] it was earlier in the war. The pricing [26:22] data, as we laid out, proves that much [26:24] on its own because the markets are not [26:26] panicking anymore. That's that's the big [26:29] that's the big smoking gun to say that [26:31] the Iranians are not being successful. [26:33] The markets are not panicking, but Iran [26:35] hasn't lost all of it and it's actively [26:38] contesting whatever whatever remains, [26:40] whatever possible control they have. [26:43] and they're contesting it militarily. [26:45] They're trying to attack things. They're [26:47] they're trying this new toll authority [26:50] and threatening all these ships and [26:52] they're still also trying to pull Oman [26:55] into their, you know, into their scheme. [26:57] And meanwhile, Washington has every [26:59] incentive to describe its own success in [27:01] the most complete terms possible. [27:04] and at least some of what it's claiming [27:07] cannot currently be verified by anyone [27:10] whose job it is literally to count this [27:12] for a living. So I think the real lesson [27:15] of this whole story isn't who's winning, [27:17] even though that's the question that we [27:19] all want answered. It's that in a [27:22] situation like this, both sides have a [27:24] massive incentive to control the [27:27] narrative, to control the number, not [27:29] just the outcome. And a high number from [27:32] Washington says the blockade is broken [27:34] and the and the U and the and the US is [27:36] in charge. A high number of threatened [27:38] ships from Tehran says the blockade is [27:41] still on or their blockade is still on [27:44] and Iran still controls the Straits of [27:46] Hormuz. [27:48] And look, neither government is a [27:51] neutral source. I'm not equating them, [27:52] but neither of them is neutral on this. [27:55] And uh I'd say the same thing to you [27:57] that I'd say about reading Iranian state [27:59] media, which I do every day. Don't take [28:01] anything at face value, but don't [28:03] dismiss it either. Look for what's [28:05] independently checkable and then we [28:06] build a picture from there. Right? We [28:09] could we could check the market pricing, [28:11] the current price, the futures price. Um [28:14] we could we could see the US Navy's [28:17] presence is is there. So when the [28:19] Iranians say that there's no US Navy, [28:21] they're wrong. We could check that. uh [28:23] the exact barrel count crossing Hormuz [28:26] on any given day, that's not currently [28:28] checkable. [28:29] So, whatever numbers we hear, we just [28:31] don't know and no one knows because [28:35] there's all the transponders that are [28:37] off and who knows. So, we'll keep [28:38] tracking this story, especially the Oman [28:40] piece. I think it's interesting and it [28:43] is worth watching how the Americans [28:44] respond if Oman is too cozy with the [28:48] Iranians. Uh and that's uh yeah, and [28:51] that's and that's interesting. Anyway, [28:54] thanks for watching. Please, as always, [28:56] make sure that you are subscribed at [28:58] Israel 365 News uh YouTube channel as [29:01] well as being subscribed here. We just [29:04] put up a new uh a new conversation that [29:06] I had with uh with David Worms [29:08] yesterday. A fantastic conversation. He [29:10] was actually uh in the in in our studio [29:12] in Israel because he's visiting now. And [29:15] uh I want to make sure that you see [29:17] that. So, go over to Israel 365 News [29:19] YouTube channel. Make sure you catch [29:20] that. And uh yeah, thanks for watching [29:24] and we'll see you on the next one.
