Professor Jiang's answer to "how long does the Iran war last" is that it no longer has an off switch. The pragmatic Iranian leadership that could have negotiated is dead, starting with Soleimani, and the men rising through the Revolutionary Guard are young, furious, and eschatological. They believe this is the war that brings the Twelfth Imam. On the American side, Jiang argues Trump has surrounded himself with people who feed the same religious certainty, and Israel has gone all in on its own end-times reading. Iran has now announced it will not negotiate and will stop retaliating and start initiating attacks, including, Jiang says, discussion of striking targets in Europe. 00:00 Why the Iran War Became Unstoppable: Zealots Replace the Moderates 12:16 Wesley Clark's Seven Countries in Five Years Memo 25:01 The Butler Shooting as an Anointing Ritual 31:21 Sabbatai Zevi, Jacob Frank, and Redemption Through Sin 42:06 Epstein, Wexner's Power of Attorney, and Robert Maxwell 55:00 Censorship, YouTube's View Rule, and Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom Then he pulls up a map and shows Danny how the Ukraine war and the Iran war fuse. Russia resupplies Iran across the Caspian Sea, and a few weeks ago Ukrainian drones hit an Iranian cargo ship there, killing a crewman. Zelensky admitted it. Jiang reads that as a deliberate attempt to merge two wars so Washington keeps paying for one of them. Add the Houthis, dug into Yemeni mountains that Operation Prosperity Guardian could not clear, already hitting Aramco oil fields with drones, and you get his blunt summary that the entire Middle East is one giant oil field you can blow up. The economics are where it gets close to home. Japan buys most of its oil from the Middle East, has roughly six months of strategic reserve, and holds about $1.16 trillion in US treasuries funded by the yen carry trade. If that trade unwinds, Jiang says, the AI bubble and the private credit bubble go with it, and the American middle class simply stops existing. Danny plays the Wesley Clark interview about a classified memo to take out seven countries in five years, Iraq through Iran, and Jiang counts off the six already destroyed before asking the harder question: why was a US general allowed to leak it to the most anti-war journalist in America? From there the conversation runs to the Butler shooting as an anointing ritual, Sabbatai Zevi and the 1492 expulsion, and the Epstein and Robert Maxwell money trail of 1991. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices