How much is Iran supporting the Houthis?

Well, the recent round of strikes began when the Saudis targeted an airline coming into Yemen's airport, which they claim, the Saudis claim, was carrying Iranian supplies and munitions meant to target the Saudis.

offensive weapons.

And they felt that they were justified in taking this out.

I believe U.S. intelligence confirmed that that's what the Iranian aircraft was in fact carrying, was carrying these weapons and military specialists, I might add.

That basically is what gave the Yemenis the green light, or excuse me, the Houthis the green light to conduct reprisal operations, retaliate against the Saudis and considered airports fair target, fair game.

At the same time, Iran is dealing with its own issues, and additional disruption, on the one hand, could give Iran greater leverage, right? If the Houthis are able to make things difficult for the U.S., the Saudis, and their allies in the region, this is one thing Iran can bring to the table as it discusses what to do next with the U.S.

Okay, so pulling back just a bit, what do the Houthis want?

I think that's probably important context we mitch-missed, which was the US got involved in the Shah and how he governed Iran.

It's a fascinating period.

In nineteen fifty-one-- so basically under the Iranian constitution, the Shah, the king, has the authority to select the prime minister with the consent of parliament.

The consent part is really nominal.

And so Mossadegh, who is a senior member of parliament and also a member of the previous royal dynasty, is distantly related, this, um, elderly statesman who the, the Shah, out of sort of courtesy after having gone through a successive list of prime ministers, says, "Okay, I'm gonna appoint him prime minister." So he wasn't democratically elected.

He was the-- he was elected to parliament, but from there, the Shah selected him to be prime minister.

Mossadegh nationalized the oil company, the Anglo-American Oil Company, which was owned primarily by the British.

Number two

The tension is clearly resulting in real changes, 'cause those stats I read out at the start, where there's more nations in conflict now, there's more military funding, um, more people think we're on the verge of, of something pretty catastrophic than any time in the last couple of decades, that information that, which is causing attention, is then having a downstream impact, which is conflict is breaking out.

I'd also say it's upstream.

Um, you have polarization happening within societies, especially in Western societies, where there is no monopoly on the truth, or news, or information.

You have the fragmentation of, let's say, n- major news sources.

Traditionally, you have a few very respected, trusted sources, and authorities, or figureheads that people would turn to.

We don't have that anymore.

It's now been diluted to the point that it is m- almost meaningless.

But Benjamin, you believe, I think, that if there were to be a trigger for World War III, it would come from that region?