The Third Option That Doesn't Exist

Five weeks into the U.S.-Iran war, the commentary ecosystem is on fire. And we really can’t tell what’s going on.

This episode cuts through the noise, exploring how influencer politicians, alternative media incentives, and the attention economy are distorting our understanding of one of the most consequential wars in recent memory.

Join us as we break down the dynamics from the escalation trap forming around Kharg Island, to the water security crisis that could dwarf the oil story, to the quiet power struggle inside the White House between the Netanyahu-aligned camp and the Vance/Thiel coalition.

Hope you enjoy!

Watch on listen on Spotify. Transcript is below if you want to read.

• The state of the U.S.-Iran war five weeks in and what the commentary class got wrong

• Why media literacy is at an all-time low and how alternative media became part of the problem

• The influencer politician framework and how going viral replaced actual policy

• Iran’s five conditions for peace and why the Gulf states are pulling strings behind the scenes

• The escalation trap around Kharg Island and the sunk cost fallacy driving U.S. strategy

• Israel’s role in preventing de-escalation and what sovereignty really looks like in this conflict

• Why water security, not oil, may be the most catastrophic wildcard in the region

• The Vance/Thiel camp’s quiet resistance and what it means for the 2028 political landscape

• X: CarterHLawson

• 00:00 The State of the Iran War

• 06:05 Media Literacy and the Influence of Alternative Media

• 11:48 The Dynamics of the Current Political Landscape

• 17:59 Iran’s Conditions and the Future of the Conflict

• 32:28 Iran’s Leverage and U.S. Military Strategy

• 39:21 The Role of Israel and Regional Sovereignty

• 45:58 Water Security: A Critical Factor in Conflict

• 51:54 The Humanitarian Crisis of Water Scarcity

• 57:46 Domestic Politics and the Future of U.S. Engagement

Pplsartofwar (00:01.208)

Hi and welcome to States Craft. Today we’re again with Carter and we are discussing the Iran war. We are at almost a month now in the Iran war and we are seeing some very interesting developments, including a possible ground invasion.

Carter H. Lawson (00:18.664)

Yeah, I think we’re about five weeks into this and it does look like we are looking at some kind of ground operation of the nature of which I think will be one of the main topics on the show today.

Pplsartofwar (00:30.234)

Yes, and there’s a lot of questions here because no one is a hundred percent sure what’s going on and we’ve also seen so much misinformation going into this. The commentary ecosystem is saying everything from Kharg Island to those islands in the Persian Gulf and it just goes on and on. I mean, that brings us to the first point here: the commentary ecosystem is really performing. In fact, some people on Twitter even said it’s kind of strange that they have to ask Iran for understanding of what’s really going on rather than looking at the United States. Because what we’ve seen from Truth Social, we’ve seen from Twitter, we’ve seen from other places, there’s just been an increasing number of leaks that seem like leaks but are really just meant there to promote virality.

Every single time Trump says, “we are in the middle of a negotiation,” the head of the Iranian parliament says, “no, this is a complete lie.” And it’s just been going back and forth and back and forth on this. So I mean, what patterns have you seen that are visible in the last week? And what’s aged so badly?

Carter H. Lawson (01:45.398)

Well, I think the biggest one—and this will age badly because it’s so obvious what’s happening—is that there’s no way, especially in retrospect, for us to be able to understand this conflict without acknowledging the fact that Trump is just saying stuff that he thinks will help stall for time, will help the market feel good about what’s happening right now. It’s clear that we are going to go towards, if this conflict continues for even twice the length it’s currently gone on for, we’re looking at... I wouldn’t use the word recession, but at this point, it feels overused. I just think, definitely economic catastrophe when it comes to energy and oil, et cetera.

And for Trump, it seems that it’s not even a secret anymore that he’s just saying whatever it is to please the market. If you look at the timing of his statements, he’ll wait until just before and after the markets open to say specific things. If he wants to be a little more aggressive, he’ll wait until just after the markets closed. If he wants to say, “no, we’re in the middle of talks and negotiations,” right before the market closes, he’ll say statements like that. It’s a really dirty business and certainly should be illegal. I think history will see that exactly for what it is.

Pplsartofwar (02:56.745)

Right. I mean, Pezeshkian, the head of the Iranian government, called it out as market dumping. And I’ve seen a few accounts online such as Macro Edge and Don Johnson, who runs that account, have completely said, “look, this is a major disaster because you are having someone pumping the markets.” But at the same time, the markets are no longer believing them. And yet the market just stays up, which doesn’t really make sense because the commentary ecosystem is performing, but it’s not being priced into the markets and people are trying to wave this off.

What you’re seeing in this waving off form is different from before. Before, they kept assuming he’s chicken—the famous “taco Trump“ always chickens out. What we’ve seen from Greenland, from Panama, from all these other ones is eventually he chickens out last minute, gets an okay deal, and then spins it as this great victory. But what we’re seeing with all this is it’s different. People are insisting that he’s going to taco—and I’ve seen this from several people like Marco Papic, who’s a really good analyst, and people in the finance sphere. And there’s not just an expectation, but it also feels like there is a prayer that he will taco.

Going back to the commentary you were mentioning before, the markets aren’t pricing it in. And it’s just really interesting to watch this because they’re all predicting a ceasefire, they’re all predicting that he’s just going to walk it off, which is possible. But at this point, how much of this is an escalation trap? And how much of this is just being, in your opinion, being fueled by the commentary class here, who are just trying to speculate this and bet like we mentioned before?

Carter H. Lawson (04:49.556)

You know, I think media literacy is at an all-time low. And as we discussed on our Epstein episode, the role of the promise of alternative media, when it emerged about 10 years ago as the Intellectual Dark Web, as the non-mainstream media... now it’s at the point where it really is competing with top media companies. You know, Tucker Carlson’s podcast alone, I think has a larger influence than Fox News at this point in terms of viewership to actual impact on worldview ratio.

The big promise of alternative media was: finally we’ll have investigations, we’ll have journalists without any partisan alliances even, without any alliance to any major corporation or major donor. We’ve just seen that that has not come true. I mean, certainly there are a few, but we’re still in this world where we have the whole Tenet Media scandal where you had Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, a few other big names in conservative commentary that were being paid by this apparently billionaire overseas that was really interested in conservative media. He had this whole fake profile made for this guy—turns out it was Russian intelligence the entire time as a Russian op. And I think just more and more we’re seeing, if you just crack open the hood of a lot of these people in this commentator class, you’re seeing over and over the people are doing their best to bend reality to their position instead of the opposite of it. The whole promise was we’re going to start with just the reality, then we will form positions, they will debate the ideas in the free market of ideas. And again, that is happening, but it’s not happening a lot on the top podcast charts. I’ll just say that much.

Pplsartofwar (06:10.06)

Right.

Pplsartofwar (06:25.515)

And I feel like people were expecting this debate club where people would sit down, be logical, debate points, notice things, and then further come up with conclusions. But what we’re getting here with a lot of these GeoPol accounts on X is mob rule. We’re getting mob rule. So there are so many people with so many maligned incentives getting “Elon bucks” from the platform, trying to get their bets up for Kalshi or Polymarket like we mentioned before in the gambling episode. I mean, arsonist incentive.

And then you’ve got all these, I would say, multipolar world bros who are doing this as top of funnel. What I’ve noticed is you run into an ecosystem of two or three accounts—which I think some people know who I’m talking about—who run a whole bunch of small businesses and they’re using this as top of funnel to get people to buy into their small business because they’re aligned with a certain political position, or they are aligning with the multipolar position, or they’re aligning with a pro-American MAGA position.

The point is, it’s not about what the position is, but they are using the political position to be able to sell and push a product from investment products to, I would even say, retail. And it’s the most interesting thing we’re seeing here because they’re not just collecting money from Elon bucks, but they’re also collecting money from downstream predictions. It’s all top of funnel. So it makes you wonder like, what is the incentive for these people? It’s arsonist incentive.

Carter H. Lawson (08:12.976)

Yeah, we’re in the attention economy, you know? So even building a platform no matter what it’s on is kind of seen as a valuable thing. In the same way that I think hustle culture says, “it doesn’t matter as long as you’re making the money.” It could be drop-shipping absolute crap, but hey, you’re getting your grind on. I think with influencers, it’s becoming a lot of the same thing.

And it gets to a point where it is just pretty inhumane and gross. We’re not just talking about whether something Trump said is racist or not. We’re talking about the ethics of us bombing, dropping a Tomahawk on a girls’ school in Iran. We’re talking about the ethics of regime change, the thousands of lives and cities and livelihoods destroyed in the wake of that. And that being treated as just kind of another headline. There is something kind of gross about it all.

Especially when there’s such a thick fog of war, and it really is hard to understand what’s happening. I mean, a lot of the takes you’ve seen over the past five weeks have aged so horribly. So horribly. People predicting Iran would have collapsed, people predicting the U.S. would have collapsed by now, people predicting that Israel would have used a nuke by now. I mean, you’ve seen some of the most impossibly bad takes, but it’s not about the analytical rigor of them. It’s about how well can they go viral. And in that regard, hey, everyone’s a winner. You know what I mean? And that’s kind of a problem.

Pplsartofwar (09:36.651)

And in fact, Nikita Beer and Elon had to change the algorithm and redo it simply because there was so much AI slop. There was so much polemic, kangers showing up and trying to game the system. And it was affecting their payouts. I think they practically almost... I don’t think they suspended the payouts, but they did certainly reduce it. And the commentary now is about being fast and reacting the quickest rather than actually being useful.

One point I would like to point out is this is a huge, huge difference than the Ukraine war. The Ukraine war happened in February 2022 before all this, before ChatGPT came out. And there is a huge difference. In the Ukraine war, people were trying to analyze, I would say, tank movements. They were trying to count Russian equipment. They were trying to latch onto videos and see like, what’s the changes here? What are we noticing here? Like, what’s the course of the war? Where is Zelensky? Where is Putin moving in all this? And what’s the United States doing? There was more noticing and then trying to argue and troll each other for facts. But there was a coherent framework of coherent structure coming out.

And what we’re seeing here now is after GPT came out and generative AI—generative everything—people have changed from trying to notice things to trying to create things to feed a therapy story. Some people joke like, “geopolitics is therapy for men.” It’s really true. What we’re seeing is a lot of capeshit crap. People believing, “well, this war will be the one that will end the United States hegemony,” or people saying, “this war will be the war that makes the United States rich after the end of this.”

Carter H. Lawson (11:55.153)

I mean, in your opinion, how has this changed versus 2022 and versus how people consumed news during Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam? Because you talked to me about this before when we were off the podcast, and it’s a really interesting opinion I think people need to hear. Well, first, to be able to kind of hit the ball out of the park on that, can you explain your idea of the influencer politician? You talk about this all the time on Twitter. You’ve written articles on it. It’s such a fantastic framework about thinking about so many of, especially Western leaders today. Do you mind explaining just kind of that and that idea in general?

Pplsartofwar (12:13.866)

Yeah, I can explain that first. Okay, so basically the idea of the influencer politician is that the whole point of policy is to go viral. So people would in the past... of course, all politicians are theatrical. I get this response that people say, “well, they’re just being theatrical,” not necessarily.

So Roosevelt, I mean, Hitler, I mean, we go down the line from democratic people to dictators. The point of the theatricalness was to build up support for a policy and to be able to get people out there pushing the policy so that the leader could achieve an end. That was the point.

Now, what you get with influencer politicians, you see several things. One: the influencer politician does not care about the policy. That’s the main one. They care if they go viral. They care what trends. So we see this with Trump and Kharg Island. I mean, everyone from the Iranians to average Twitter users to even a second lieutenant will know looking at Kharg Island: this is not possible to take. And when you’re broadcasting it like this, this destroys operational security, OPSEC. But Trump keeps pushing it. Why? Because it’s viral, because people are talking about it. And whether or not that operation succeeds—let’s say it fails tomorrow, maybe it succeeds—the point is, it went viral.

And the idea behind an influencer politician is that they like to gamble. Because gambling gives them great virality, they like to say things and then change it the next minute because they know that the public doesn’t have any object memory. They’ll forget things within three months. And they also know that the public likes spectacles because they have been pre-primed by social media to do that. What we get with influencer politicians is they’re constantly reacting.

They’re not setting policy. And they go after constantly exciting things, but at the same time, because they’re going after exciting things, they destroy any fundamental base that a nation has. We’re seeing this trend—of course, Trump is one—but we’re also seeing the more conservative politicians also doing this too. So, I mean, we see this with Sanae Takaichi in Japan. She’s doing that drum solo with the Korean president, which is... I get it, it’s not totally influencer politician stuff. And then Macron’s little aviator sunglasses stunt. I mean, the only two people right now who are not doing this ludicrous crap are ironically Putin and Xi.

Carter H. Lawson (14:58.445)

Yeah. And people are noticing that. I mean, I can’t find a part of the political aisle that’s not just a normie CNN viewer or Fox News viewer that doesn’t look at them with some admiration, which a lot of people find incredibly bizarre. They have a ton of issues with both of those men. But I think they just enjoy the idea of a powerful, respected, scary head of state.

Which, without even giving my own opinion, I just think, yeah, we’re just at the point with Trump where I think he thinks he gives off that impression, but it just seems at this point people around him are scared of his unpredictability, not because of any cunning he has, but because of the idiocy he’s displayed just throughout, especially the second term.

To me, the cognitive decline is so clear with him. And I think to kind of touch on the moment you’re talking about, one reason these influencer politicians can get away with just saying one thing one day and quite literally the opposite the next day is because there’s not really any big moments anymore in politics. Everything is just one in one year, out the other. What’s today’s news, what’s today’s thing? It’s like the whole world and news cycle has become TikTok. All information has become short-formatized.

Do you remember Joe Kent resigning a week or two weeks ago? It already feels like that’s old news. And to me, that’s one of the biggest things to happen domestically since the start of the war. Really? He’s going to resign? This is a man who in Special Forces had seen over 10 deployments, has had his wife killed in combat in these Middle East wars, fought in those Middle East wars, and says in his resignation letter that Israel has been the one kind of dragging us into all of these conflicts in the Middle East we’ve seen in the 21st century and even before that.

Carter H. Lawson (17:18.445)

He later talks on podcasts that have gotten tens of millions of views that he did all that—he had the role he did in the administration to hopefully help pull against Israeli influence, to help bring some common sense into the room, to help re-establish American interest in the executive, which is just kind of a crazy thing. I think the influencer politician’s mindset, understanding that is so crucial because I really think... you asked the question earlier, just overall impressions.

I think right now what we’re seeing is two clans are starting to emerge within the executive. I think Trump is full on with Netanyahu and the Israeli interests—we’re going to drag this war on as long as possible. Because you need to... and this is for the reasons that we talked about in our last Iran episode that we recorded last week... that Israel’s goal, their aim, is a Greater Israel, capital G.

They want territorial expansion. They want to be a hegemon in their region and they want to destroy any legitimate rivalry to their power. And right now that is the role that Iran is playing. A lot of people that have talked about wanting to give Iran a nuke, letting them develop a nuke... that’s one of the reasons they’ll cite, that certain camps cite, is that Israel being the only nuclear power in the region and being so hostile towards everyone around them, not to mention the other kind of religious hostilities and differences, is creating such an imbalance. Over the past few decades, that’s so predictable.

And here we are. I think this is their big moment. They have everything to lose, which is why they’re invested.

And then you have the other camp: the Vance camp. And I really think we have a lot of conflicting reporting about what role Vance is playing in this.

On the campaign trail, he talked about how he was opposed to this war, yet right before the breakout of this war and in the past few weeks, where has he been? Where is JD Vance?

There was talk that he was telling the president, “you know, we want to do limited strikes, nothing too crazy,” leading up to the strikes themselves. There’s talk from the Miriam Adelson-owned Israeli paper saying Vance and Netanyahu are fighting, claiming that Vance was yelling on the phone to Netanyahu—this is also in Axios—yelling on the phone to Netanyahu talking about killing the settlers in the West Bank and how awful that is.

And then you simultaneously have Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post saying that Vance has been requested by name by the Iranians to lead the negotiations. So what I think is happening here is that you have David Sacks, who’s spoken out against the war. Joe Kent has spoken out against the war. What do these three men have in common? JD Vance, David Sacks, and Joe Kent. They are all associates of Peter Thiel. They’ve all known Peter Thiel for decades. And Joe Kent’s congressional race had Peter Thiel funding. And I know for a fact that before we even get to the Trump-Vance 2024 ticket—which I believe the largest campaign contribution in American history was done by Peter Thiel because Vance was on that ticket—you have even in Vance’s Senate race, you had $15 million in donations from Thiel and $1 million in donation from David Sacks.

So it looks like they’re trying to create this coalition to say, “we are going to be against this war. We’re going to negotiate against this war.” It seems like what those Rupert Murdoch and more Israeli-aligned types are trying to do is spin the narrative that Iran is personally requesting Vance because they know that Vance will be more lenient with Iran. He won’t be as hawkish. He’ll let them get what they want. Maybe even throw in some ideas of, “he’s anti-Semitic,” because who else is in this new anti-war network? You have Tucker Carlson.

Who’s Tucker Carlson aligned with? Famously defended Nick Fuentes, who is obviously against this war. Tucker Carlson’s son, Buckley Carlson, works in JD Vance’s press office. You had calls during the whole Fuentes-led MAGA Civil War in the late fall, early winter, from Israeli-aligned individuals saying that Vance needs to fire Buckley Carlson. Vance said, “I’m not going to do that. People should be able to pursue whatever ideas they want.”

Now you might be going, “okay, so you have this wing going, what is their interest?” Is it really that Vance is “based”? Is he going to be against Israel? I don’t think it’s like that. I think the biggest benefit he and the Thiel camp see from Israel is how much they are helping in specifically the creation of tech, AI, and surveillance technologies and intelligence, right? And if Palantir is... yeah, go ahead. I know I’m outlaying a lot.

Pplsartofwar (21:48.127)

So, right, in terms of how this has affected the MAGA commentary, what patterns are you seeing here? We know that Thiel, we know that Vance and the rest are behind this, but there’s a larger narrative that these guys are starting to shape online. And it’s very interesting because what we’re seeing now from the commentary and the commentary class that supports these guys... it’s like they’ve been not only moving the goalposts, they’re tentatively just trying to justify in real time. It’s not a very aggressive reaction. It’s a very “we don’t want this,” but they’re trying to find a silver lining to all this. If you notice all the accounts on X.

Carter H. Lawson (22:42.943)

Yeah, it kind of feels like some of them are mourning in a way. You know what I mean? Because they’re talking about how this coalition that was built up—this diverse right-wing, you know what I mean? You had a massive growth in Hispanic voters, massive growth across all demographics voting Republican, voting for Trump. And it’s this whole idea of, “we’re going to throw away that big coalition we built because of the Iran war.” So I think those are kind of the MAGA anti-war types. That’s some of the angles I’ve seen.

And then I do agree. You do have people saying—how many times have you heard the statement in the past month or so—”Iran’s always been a thorn in our side. It doesn’t hurt to take them out. This is an opportunity to test out new technology, to let our warfighters do their thing.” That’s the Pete Hegseth rhetoric. I don’t buy that. And I think deep down, these people don’t buy it either.

What were the two big things Trump promised? No new wars, and we are going to do mass deportations. Well, mass deportations got thrown out the window. The numbers of last year’s deportations came out incredibly underwhelming. You had the ICE protests earlier this year seeming to be successful in their aim. And here we go. We have a war in the Middle East that I don’t even think the biggest war hawks would say, “yeah, we’re going to do a boots-on-the-ground operation in Iran a year and a half into our new administration.”

Obviously, I think this was in the works. This was the goal of this administration from the campaign. I don’t think any of this was a mistake. I just think Trump was going to be anything to anybody. You had a lot of Somalians showing up to his rallies he did in Michigan because they thought, “oh, he’s going to end the war between Israel and Palestine. That means that the West Bank will hold as it is.” But it’s like, no, dude, if you follow the money, that was never the plan. But Trump was totally fine with people thinking that as long as it got him elected.

Pplsartofwar (24:35.305)

And that’s going back to what we were saying about the influencer class too and the commentary thing. I mean, this is the American side of the equation. When we look at the commentary class on the other side of all of this, like I would say the Middle East, Pakistan, and India, we’re starting to see this sort of pattern where they... I mean, they’re going a lot farther than the American or the Western accounts in terms of trying to perform this. Like MAGA is trying to perform, obviously, but these other guys are trying to spin it as some sort of victory. I’ve seen them throw it out as some sort of victory.

I’ve seen it where like you’ve seen the Arab states or the Gulf states where if you’re in like Saudi accounts where there’s a bunch of Saudis, there’s a bunch of Gulf staters, they aren’t seeing it. It’s strange. They aren’t. Some of them are not seeing this as “United States started this war.”

Logically, it looks like that. Some of them are saying, “yeah, Iran attacked us. So we need to make sure that Iran never feels this again.” And on top of that, you’ve got these groups in India and Pakistan who are practically milking this. People look at the actual location of where these guys are—they’re playing both sides. They’re playing MAGA, they’re the multipolar guys, or they’re opening multiple accounts just to keep this rage going.

Carter H. Lawson (26:14.865)

Yeah. I mean, let me ask you, what’s the best case to be made that this is a victory for the United States? I mean, are you even willing to try to make that case? Because I really am trying to open my mind to it... I don’t see a world where this is a victory for the United States. Because even if we are to say, “Iran’s the world capital, the world export of terrorism,” you’ve seen that thrown around. It’s like, trying to topple their regime and destroying Tehran, which is bigger than New York City—leveling that... I don’t think that’s going to reduce terror in the slightest. So what do you think are the benefits that will come out of this war, if any, for the United States?

Pplsartofwar (26:51.825)

There’s really none to say about this. You’re collapsing... I mean, the commentary class has mentioned this several times, but they have a point.

This is going to, if this keeps going on, this is going to collapse the helium supplies. I mean, there are people telling me, “no, it’s not going to collapse the helium supplies,” and then the chip makers will bid on it. Because helium is used in making GPU chips, compute, that’s used for AI and also normal computers. But I keep seeing commentaries saying, “you know, it’s not going to do that.” But at the same time, if you have a reduction that increases the cost and because the supply is being choked out, that affects long-term planning.

And then also you’ve got all the petroleum and petroleum-derived products. People don’t realize that some of this stuff goes into roads—you use petroleum products to pave roads, for example, and insulators on electricity stuff. But the point here is none of this benefits the United States in the end. I mean, to put it straight, Trump basically cooked the United States’ reputation for the next decade. I mean, the commentators are right about that.

Carter H. Lawson (28:05.505)

And to link that to the point I was making about Vance and linking that to influencer politicians... I think this big reason why you have this coalition forming that’s against this war within the executive and their donors is this war is electoral suicide. And Vance will be asked on the debate stage by Newsom or whoever else in ‘28, “Hey, why were you so in favor of this war?” And right now he does have plausible deniability. He’s kind of been MIA. So I guess I ask everybody: watch closely some of those personalities I’ve mentioned and watch closely how the rhetoric you get out of them these next few weeks. I think that’ll be huge.

Speaking of these next few weeks, there’s all this speculation about whether we’re going to see boots on the ground. And I think it is imminent. I think the target is Kharg Island. I’m not... that is incredibly unwise. It seems like it is a suicide mission, but right now there are two options for what Trump can do. He can back down now because of the economic implications of everything happening, and that would be seen as a loss—humiliation for the U.S. And ego aside, that’s just the U.S. being seen as a power that can exercise less deterrence than it previously did. If we cannot do a successful overseas operation for more than a few weeks before falling apart and losing any strategic advantage, Russia and China are watching that. And it will say a lot.

So my last point on this is Trump is desperately trying to seek a third option. Because the first option is you retreat; the second is you escalate, which at this point means using tactical nukes or you’re going to have to do boots on the ground. You can’t just... we’ve already dropped over 10,000 bombs. What, are we just going to keep bombing? I mean, we clearly underestimated the fighting spirit and the will of this regime at large. And Trump’s desperately looking for a third option. If he’s able to capture this island—which will be an incredibly bloody operation, because right now I think you have a little over 10,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne and the Marines coming over, but he’s also talking about potentially doubling that number... he hasn’t clarified what branch or unit that would be... let’s just say we do get 20,000 troops and capture that island.

Let’s say we do it successfully. That’s a thousand lives lost. I think that’s part of the reason you’re getting this signaling so hard that this operation could happen. Because we’re trying to get the American public used to the idea that this is a strategically viable idea. So whenever there are all those deaths, you can say, “but hey, it’s part of winning this war. We need to have the economic leverage over them that they have over us. So to de-escalate, we need to first escalate.” That’s what I think the best argument for Trump could be right now.

Pplsartofwar (31:09.472)

Okay. So, I mean, this plays into another point that I wanted to talk about here, which is Iran’s conditions. Because we are, like you said, seeing this escalation of bringing in troops, bringing in the Marine units, bringing in 10th Mountain Division of all people, but ground troops. And Iran has published five conditions to end the war:

1. End all aggression.

2. Provide concrete guarantees preventing the United States from bombing Iran again.

3. War payments and compensation.

4. Sovereignty recognized over the Strait of Hormuz (basically Iran owns it as a toll booth).

In this kind of respect, I don’t know if Saudi Arabia or Qatar is going to allow Trump to de-escalate because there is a situation right now in the Gulf where you have the Kuwaitis, you have the Bahrainis, and they’re saying, “no, we need to de-escalate this.” But then you have the Saudis and you have the UAE who are on different levels saying, “no, you cannot do this after all the damage they’ve done, and you cannot let Iran own the Strait of Hormuz.” So in terms of the escalation here, how do these terms Iran gave out affect things? Are they a starting point?

Carter H. Lawson (32:50.842)

I do think they are a starting point and I think they are upselling. Because let’s just take that fourth point: they’re not going to get reparations from the United States. So that’s basically what they’re asking for. Regarding Kharg Island, you did have the Iranian parliamentary head say that they have intel that the U.S. will attack an island, and whatever state in the region helps them will have their entire infrastructure attacked and destroyed. That’s the promise they gave out. So I think right now, Iran does have leverage just based on the snapshot of where the conditions are. They have the leverage to get those demands fulfilled, but I think they’re asking for those knowing that that’s not going to be the language that is going to get a checkmark and thumbs up from the U.S.

Pplsartofwar (33:51.81)

There is what someone cited before, though, of an escalation trap. Once Trump puts 5,000 or 10,000 troops into the theater, we get this dynamic where he’s encouraged to use them. But if he backs down, Iran is going to go after those conditions. I mean, they are a starting point, I agree, but at that point, he’s starting from a negative position and having to respond to Iran’s initiative. It gets dismissed as delusional by some people, but when you look at it, Iran is not looking to be able to... we see this in the pattern of their refusals to the US ceasefire, the 15 points. What you’re seeing here is two nations with these really extreme starting points. And not only are these extreme starting points, they’re starting points where someone has to show that they’re willing to back down.

Normally in these sorts of negotiations, you would see someone say, “okay, I can see this point, you can see this point,” or there would be a third party like Oman or Pakistan asking them to concede or show a gesture. But we haven’t really seen gestures in terms of trying to reduce those conditions, nor are we seeing diplomatic signaling showing they are trying to show good faith gestures.

Carter H. Lawson (35:35.725)

Yeah. And I think you’re right that the odds of us going to the negotiating table are getting lower the next couple of weeks, especially as you have more troops come in. We are guilty of a sunk cost fallacy right now. That’s what it feels like. We did these strikes saying it would only take four days and here we are. It’s been five weeks. We’ve had 13 bases damaged or destroyed. We’ve had a lot of casualties. And they said, “okay, we’re going to do boots on the ground now.” It’s like, okay, well, what happens when a thousand are dead in this operation to take over the island? Now what? Well, we need to send a hundred thousand troops. You see, it’s the sunk costs—we need to double down and then double down more. It just seems we’re in such a predictable trap. And Iran obviously doesn’t have the technology to reach us in conventional warfare, but if they could just continue to lure us in, we’re falling for trap after trap.

Pplsartofwar (36:57.791)

Right. And Iran wants guarantees that the US military bases in the region can no longer be used against it. They’ve been pressuring the Gulf states saying, “we don’t want them in the region.” But Iran doesn’t have the actual physical presence like troops. And just as the US cannot win a war against Iran by just bombing it, Iran cannot force the US to retreat 100% just by bombing. Yes, they’re closing the Strait, that’s essential for forcing it. But at the same time, to really force it, they need to defeat the Gulf states’ will to fight. And it doesn’t seem like the Gulf states are giving up.

So we have this situation here where you’re collapsing the global economy while these people are bickering. While both Iran and the United States are bickering over the Strait and oil prices are going up, neither can totally impose 100% outcomes on the other. A lot of people are saying the economic situation will force the United States to see rationality because trade is important, therefore Iran’s going to win this and we’re all going to go home. What’s your perception of this?

Carter H. Lawson (38:40.55)

I think that’s just naive and that’s not even an anti-Iran point. I mean, just show me based on the U.S.’s behavior in the Middle East. Does that happen? No, they are very much willing to follow up the ladder of escalation. If Iran was to escalate, the U.S. I don’t think will be the ones to go, “okay, wait a minute, let’s trail off.” And I think that’s why capturing this island will be so important to the United States. If they are able to do that operation successfully, maybe that will finally be some of that economic leverage that Iran is exercising over us.

One thing I worry the U.S.—and by the U.S. I mean commentators—I’m not sure what generals are thinking, is that I think Iran is more willing to destroy some of their own energy infrastructure than let us have it. So I could see a situation where they kind of go scorched earth on a good amount of the island. They’d rather it not be available to anybody than only be available to us through capture.

Pplsartofwar (39:56.683)

And that’s the difference I feel like in the will to fight. Let’s say Iran does do that—they come up with a Nero plan. I mean, they burn everything down. It’s scorched earth. They prevent the United States from using the oil or stabilizing the oil prices. The question at that point is: once you’ve done that, what’s left for your country? And then what’s the next step? I feel like the United States is still thinking, “well, if we bomb them enough and we invade them enough, maybe we will get some leverage at the table.” I don’t think Iran thinks that’s going to work. But then you have Iran saying, “we’re going to burn this all down and take you all down with me.”

I keep arguing with finance people online: these people, both Trump and Iran, are fighting out of pride in a way. Trump fighting out of ego, Iran fighting out of the idea that, “we are not going to bear this humiliation any longer.” Is it even rational anymore? People are holding out for a rational actor when we are seeing China and Russia not totally sit on the sidelines, but they’re not actively intervening. And NATO is just sitting there.

Carter H. Lawson (41:36.566)

Yeah, the definition of rationality in action changes depending on who the players are. Because that’s not even to mention the religious elements involved in this conflict. And let’s not forget that the threat of peace motivates Israel. They view... let’s say that the U.S. and Iran do come to terms... “okay, we’re going to leave you guys alone in the Middle East, you leave us alone, cut us a bit of a deal.” That is unacceptable to Israel where they stand now, I think. And there have been White House staffers that have leaked to the press that they’ve expressed worry that if the U.S. were to try to de-escalate, Israel would not let that happen.

The definition of sovereignty... a lot of people just say it’s basically, “can you control your country? Can you enforce laws?” I think at the most raw, realist level, it’s: “can you tell the people of your country who to die for and who to kill?” And I think right now Israel is practicing a ton of sovereignty over the United States as it stands. You cannot understand this war without at least confronting the question of Israeli influence in American politics.

Pplsartofwar (43:29.698)

Yes. And that’s a great point because if Israel doesn’t feel like the Iranian threat is suppressed enough—and I’m going to throw in the Saudis there—they’re going to insist on trying to push the United States harder. They will say, “well, we’re going to keep taking the losses because in the long run, you may lose United States, but guess what? We’re safe and you did all the work for us.”

Carter H. Lawson (44:19.111)

Yeah, and I think specifically Israel, but some of the thoughts can be extended to Saudi Arabia. There are countries that are set on expanding their horizons, whether through land in Israel’s case or just economically, and they are willing to drain one empire to create their own.

Pplsartofwar (44:39.81)

Right, and it’s a bandwagon—it’s what John Mearsheimer called the bandwagon effect. Using another hegemon to your advantage to fight your wars for you, but also playing their lack of understanding of their interests to benefit you in the end. Because in the end, it goes like this: even when this war ends, China is still going to be trading with Iran, even if the Pahlavi Shah came back or if the Islamic Republic became more theocratic. United States is not going to gain much from this, but the Saudis had someone fight the war for them, bomb Iran for them, without compromising too many of their own armed forces.

That’s what we’re seeing here. And this is interesting because when I was looking at Unusual Whales recently, there is someone saying among the leakers that yes, if the United States commits to a ground operation—whether it’s raids or port seizures—Israel is not willing to commit any actual troops. And we don’t see the Saudis or the Emiratis bombing Iranian targets. So do they really have skin in the game or are they just using the United States to do the dirty work?

Carter H. Lawson (46:19.487)

I think the latter is exactly the case. I think they do have skin in the game, but they thought, “if I can put the U.S. on as a protective layer and throw them into this, I’ll just do that.” I actually find it very admirable. I wish our country would operate more in that way—having that much strategic insight to convince a larger empire to do your bidding and trick them into thinking it’s for some kind of religious reason or long-term legacy. That’s geopolitics.

Pplsartofwar (47:01.772)

Right, and it’s not all moral. These nations are not as cupped as people think. They’re using the power of the more powerful power with a very vain, egotistical person to run all of this. But I feel like the Saudis really underestimated how far Iran would go.

Carter H. Lawson (47:52.51)

Yeah. Let’s say they help us take over the island. Well, if Iran makes good on the promise... there are desalination plants that are in a pretty focused area in Saudi Arabia. If those are destroyed, I believe that’s a majority of the clean water in the country, just unavailable now. That’s just one piece of their infrastructure that could potentially be targeted by Iran because it’s a race to the bottom. In a war of attrition, nobody wins.

Pplsartofwar (48:39.786)

Right. And no matter what side wins, it’s a Pyrrhic victory. If Iran wins, they’ve lost so much to win it that the victory cannot be followed up on politically. Just because Iran wins doesn’t necessarily mean the multipolar world is coming and Iran becomes the new regional hegemon. Afghanistan didn’t become a regional hegemon because it beat the Soviet Union. A regional leader means they can enforce their system on the countries around them and provide an alternative.

I don’t see Iran providing that alternative system because it requires a level of political skill and funding. And I don’t think oil revenues are enough. Iran will win this, I think, but I don’t think it’s going to be this cathartic victory people think. As for the United States, let’s say the United States won this—again, another Pyrrhic victory. They pretty much burned 40 years of political capital in one month. More than George W. Bush and Obama did during the Global War on Terror. They managed to burn it in a month.

Carter H. Lawson (51:15.26)

Yeah, I think now we’re at basic geopolitics here, but I 100% agree that economic trade leverage is even greater than military leverage. That’s where China’s threat comes from. People aren’t afraid of a mainland invasion by China on the United States; they’re afraid of an economic war that we could not win.

Pplsartofwar (51:58.785)

And that economic war has a lot to do with how China thinks. If we look at this, it’s creating a very inconclusive scenario. Trump is being erratic and Iran is saying, “we need guarantees you’re not going to assassinate our leaders again.” There is this existential crisis. You talked about desalination plants—everyone is focusing on oil, helium, and fertilizer. What happens if the desalination plants get hit in Saudi Arabia? It provides 80% of the water they get. It’s essential to petroleum refining, but it’s also essential for daily life. You would not have populations in Dubai or Kuwait without these. Hitting the water treatment plants in the Gulf or in Iran is more dangerous than a nuclear weapon.

Carter H. Lawson (53:41.636)

Really? Walk me more through that.

Pplsartofwar (53:46.649)

Iran is a very arid country. Water supplies were a difficulty even before all of this. They drained one of their lakes practically dry because there’s a water crisis—farms aren’t getting enough water, cities are dependent on it. Most Iranian cities are at a certain altitude for access to those water supplies. So we see a country struggling with water survival even on a good day. That’s why they invest heavily in engineering—those dams and diversion projects are essential for Iranian survival.

But then you have the flip side: the Saudis and the Gulf states are even more dependent. Iran at least has rivers and mountain water. But the Gulf states are sometimes 80% dependent on desalinated water. It’s not cheap, and they run those plants with oil. If desalination gets hit, you’re creating a refugee crisis because people can no longer get water to drink, for waste, or for crops. In the Gulf states, you are literally destroying the thing that allowed cities like Dubai to grow.

Carter H. Lawson (55:50.958)

Yeah. And talk about something that would accelerate the migration crisis in Europe. If a country of 90 million people suddenly loses access to clean water... oh my gosh. Already you have a growth in right-wing politics in Europe as a reaction to the migration crisis and only accelerating that will not help. It’s a major humanitarian crisis. If suddenly millions are coming in... that’s going to be a mess and further accelerate political problems.

Pplsartofwar (56:52.13)

Right, and it’s why Iran and Saudi Arabia have been very careful about hitting the desalination infrastructure or even dams. At that point, the other side must retaliate and that is mutual destruction. Restarting the oil refineries would take another six to eight months. No one has talked about how long it would take to restore the desalination plants because the parts and the know-how to build those systems are almost always foreign.

Carter H. Lawson (57:58.307)

What a mess, man. There’s so much lost in the fog of war that we will get in the coming weeks. I think one thing domestically to keep an eye on is the role Vance will play. If Vance does step up to the plate and does what I think he plans on doing, that will see the end of this war sooner. I’m very suspicious of Vance, but ending this war saves lives and resources. I think the Teal camp are the ones taking seriously the pivot to China—the mythical pivot that American foreign policy just hasn’t done. I think as boots go on the ground, you’re going to have the MAGA influencer class really start to turn against Trump. At least I hope so.

Pplsartofwar (59:24.255)

At least they hope so. Vance is an X-factor. But we also need to look at the elections because Trump started a major regional war during an election year. That is unheard of in American history. LBJ did it, but there was a plan to keep it going so they could get re-elected. The feeling I get off this is Trump doesn’t seem to care if he gets elected or what the results are.

Carter H. Lawson (59:57.036)

Well, there’s speculation moving to domestic politics that he’s just going to do everything he can to suspend the election and maybe exercise some wartime powers. Obviously, if he does, he’s not going to do it legally. This is certainly an interesting time to be alive. I had a professor of constitutional law say it’s an interesting time to be teaching it because normally this is the foundation of our democracy, but it’s been amazing to learn how much of this system is bendable and how much of what we took for law was actually just norms the whole time.

I think same thing on international politics—the professor’s spirit deflates as more of these problems happen. We’re entering a more barbaric, realist state of international politics. I know we agree that a multipolarity is inevitable, but yeah, I’m skeptical of it emerging as a result of this conflict.

Pplsartofwar (01:01:59.521)

Right. And what leaders and academics are seeing goes outside the frameworks they were taught in school.

Carter H. Lawson (01:02:19.87)

I think the Boomers and Gen X didn’t realize how good they had it, living in such a relatively peaceful and stable era. In the Cold War, you at least kind of knew the pieces on the board. As a young person looking at the textbooks, it’s as if we’ve entered a different timeline. People talk about the ‘60s being an age of optimism and the ‘70s being pessimism... I hate saying this, but the 2020s has taken an identity of being a more pessimistic decade. In the 2010s, there was this feeling of optimism. Now it feels like nothing ever happens, or the negative folks really have a foothold in the public conscious.

Pplsartofwar (01:03:43.594)

Yeah, I would say that there’s a rules change happening here. Geopolitics is changing. Thank you for today. This was a really productive discussion.

Carter H. Lawson (01:03:59.802)

This was really fun. Thank you for having me as always.

Pplsartofwar (01:04:04.91)

And as always, thanks for watching States Craft. This is People’s Art of War. You can find me on Substack and Twitter under the same name. You can also find Carter under @CarterHLawson on Twitter. We will be talking more about interesting topics in politics and geopolitics in States Craft.

Carter H. Lawson (01:04:30.133)

Thanks for listening.