Strait

And now they say if we hit them, they're going to destroy the Saudi oil fields.

And then you look at it, and finally— this last week, they're getting 22 to 24 million barrels either out of the Strait or through the Red Sea pipelines or the Gulf of Oman, which is very funny, Jack, because there should be no oil crisis right now.

And the oil markets, I know they're going higher because they think there's going to be a war after the midterms, and I can understand it takes a while to get through the system, but Essentially, the same amount of oil is leaving the Middle East now, except for Iran, that it did before the war.

And the United States is up production.

But that's one factor.

Another factor is the fact that the spreads between the cost of the crude and what the refined product diesel is being sold for is extremely wide, which is also suggestive that, in fact, the... uh the crude volumes really aren't what they're what they claim to be we've got depletion of the strategic petroleum reserves which also is suggestive that in fact the flows have not returned to normal and um so you've got a whole range of these factors and issues which at a minimum, makes you question whether or not the narratives around American control over the Strait of Hormuz, the failure of the Americans, the Iranians, to impose their ability to control the Straits under the terms of the MOU, etc.

All of that, I think, And in fact, we also now know in the last 24, 48 hours or so that Iran itself has intensified its attacks on ships as they're passing through the strait with reports of anywhere up to eight or nine tankers, I think, and possibly more have been struck that missiles have been fired at american naval vessels that have been escorting some of these tankers without without a retaliatory response at this stage from the united states and we also have seen now footage of the successful attack on saudi arabian refinery and pipeline infrastructure So once again, I think we are at a stage in this very fluid and unfolding conflagration, the war and everything else around it, that suggests that the United States' ability to exert its authority over the space, whether it's the Strait of Hormuz, whether it's the Houthis or what have you, is really in doubt.

And the last piece, which I think has a lot of question marks about it at the moment, is what appears to be a very hasty withdrawal of American bombers from the base in the United Kingdom, ostensibly because there'd been some reported threats of Iranian or some other terrorist interventions.