YouSaid · the spoken record

Greg Brew

lines on the record: 46
first: 2026-03-20
most recent: 2026-03-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Not only that they haven't done enough to open the strait, it's that they didn't seem to have expected this at all, that the Iranians would respond to this kind of an attack by playing their principal Trump card. So between the effectiveness of the Iranian strategy and the lack of a strong US response, a strong U.S. effective response has been really surprising to me.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know honestly, what's been surprising to me, two things that have been surprising to me how little the Iranians have needed to do to Hormuz to keep it shut, they've struck about a dozen tankers. They haven't sunk any, as far as I know. They haven't laid more than a few mines as far as anyone is aware. Activity at Hormuz has been pretty quiet because as soon as the war began and as soon as the Iranians said straight of Hormuz is now closed, all the shippers stopped. Nothing was moving. The threat was enough to keep it closed, which I thought was surprising. The second surprising point, and this kind of feeds into the first, is that I was told, my understanding was that this was a scenario the U.S. Navy had prepared for, they had lots of plans in place, they knew what they needed to do to keep Hormuz open in the event that the Iranians tried to shut it. And then the Iranians shut the straight of Hormuz, and the US response has been insufficient.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, it's slow. It's a slow process. The US can only, they say that they can release 1.4 million barrels a day. It's probably more like 1 million barrels a day. And it eats into U.S. crude export capacity. So if you're releasing oil from the SPR, you're kind of holding back on crude exports from commercial producers because they all come out of the same infrastructure. The SPR releases are more a signal. They're more saying like... Inventories, here's oil that will be on the market over the next three to four months to make up for a physical shortfall, an actual shortfall of supply. Because if there weren't SPR releases and everyone was just forced to eat the supply loss, which is approximately 10 million barrels a day right now, I mean, that's 10% of global supply that is just not getting to where it needs to go.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Constraints on supply going through the next 12 months. And that's even with releases from strategic petroleum reserves, right? The US releasing oil, other IEA members releasing oil. That's going to alleviate the pressure somewhat. But at the same time, those are stockpiles that are going to have to be refilled. And I think everybody is going to be very concerned about having a low inventory of oil when this war is over because everyone's going to be thinking about this happening again. If the Iranians survive, which they are likely to.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's the premium that's now being placed on Middle East production out of Oman, out of the UAE. And those prices are coming through Asia, and the Asians are now bidding up the price of oil coming from other markets. So you're going to start seeing that reflected elsewhere, right? Oil coming out of the US is going to start ticking up, oil coming out of other production hubs is going to start ticking up. The final point that I would say, the final sort of price point that I would look at is when you look at the curve, when you look at prices over the next 12 months, all of them are higher than they were a week. Still rising. The expectations are that this isn't going to end soon. And even if it does, the size of the physical disruption that we've seen so far is going to create”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And caused enough damage that they'll have to keep the facility off for a long time and has now cut production for years to some extent. So that's one missile. And I think they could do more if they wanted. They could go after tankers more aggressively. They're keeping their powder dry in the Strait of Formuz for the most part, right? They're mostly operating off of threats. So if things were to get worse, which they very well could, prices could go higher. The other price point to look at is spot price for physical cargoes coming out of the region, right? If the front month is around 111, and that's the future, the price of a barrel of Omani crude right now. You go to Oman, you buy a barrel of oil, is over $150 a barrel.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The front month, the Brent front month being at about 113, 112, I think that's approaching realistic expectations because Hormuz is still closed because some amount of crude is getting out via Saudi and UAE pipelines, but those pipelines are vulnerable and they could be disrupted. And as we've seen, the Iranians have the ability to do pretty significant damage to energy infrastructure if they really go for it. I mean, Joe, you mentioned the damage done to the Qatar facility last night. That was, I believe, one missile that got through.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think expectations are definitely shifting or have shifted to the belief that this is likely going to go on for a while and that the supply effect is now such that prices are going to stay high for the rest of this year. High relative to what we thought that they would be, right? When we entered 2026, there was this broad expectation that this was going to be a pretty soft market, that there was going to be an imbalance in supply over demand. Demand growth was going to be pretty soft, pretty sluggish. And that was going to keep prices low. It was going to keep them in the 60s, maybe in the 50s per barrel. That has all changed now. I think seeing oil prices fall below $75 a barrel by the end of the year is pretty unlikely, even if this conflict wraps up very quickly. I mean, looking at three things.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're creating an environment of higher prices which only further incentivizes gray and black market activity because now the profits are even better.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Iran's ability to export oil. First of all, I think it would have to be pretty comprehensive, and I think it would have to be pretty aggressive, and it would have to be sustained for quite a while, patrolling Iran's coastline, it's about 1,200 kilometers long, stopping any and all ships that are trying to exit Iran's export terminals, clamping down on overland routes. Iran smuggles oil through Iraq, it also smuggles a certain amount of oil through Turkey and into the Caucasus and into Pakistan. That trade is much more difficult for the US to interdict. And that's where a lot of this illicit kind of gray market activity happens. On top of the black market activity, so I think the upshot of trying to cut off the flow of oil with the means that the U.S. has, including military force and interdiction, only incentivizes the Iranians to turn to these alternative routes. At the same time, what you're doing on the market level is you're putting more upward pressure on prices. Yeah.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's been a long running dilemma for the United States, which is how to make sanctions work on Iran. I mean, part of the reason why we're now in a shooting war with Iran is because sanctions didn't work. Sanctions were designed to change Iran's behavior, to force them to make concessions. Iran found ways around the sanctions, refused to make concessions, and the US felt, I think, compelled to some extent to use military force, although I think there were lots of other reasons on top of that. If the US were to, let's say, take CARG, but also to try to really vigorously eliminate”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this also speaks to the psychology of the event. The Americans, I think, assume, or perhaps elements of the Trump administration assume, oh, if we take CARG, then they have to do what we say because they're going to want to export oil again. I think that misunderstands the, let's say, psychological characteristics of not only the Islamic Republic, but also of the Iranian state. They will respond extremely negatively to U.S. soldiers on Iranian soil. They will respond very negatively to any overt attempt to force capitulation. And I think certainly for the short term and probably for the medium and long term as well, they would rather live under greater financial pressure and an inability to export oil in volume than to capitulate to a US pressure campaign that involves the invasion of Iranian territory.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The other element of this is that Iran has, because it's been operating under sanction for so long, Iran, or I should say the regime, has means of moving oil that are not as easily observed. So oil gets smuggled out, particularly through Iraq. It gets loaded onto smaller tankers and smuggled out. Iran is a very, very large refining base, and it's been very profitable”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so first of all, as I mentioned, Iran has other means of exporting oil. It has other export terminals. There's one at the town of Josk east of the Strait of Hormuz that the Iranians have built up precisely because they're concerned about their reliance on Karg. It's smaller, but it can still handle probably about a million barrels a day with the other terminals operating. So if they lose Karg, they can still export crude. But let's say that the US goes all out and takes out all these terminals, right? Either bombs them or sends in the Marines to storm the beaches and seize the terminals. And Iran suddenly can't export any oil from these ports. Iran still has a limited capability of exporting oil by rail. They have a rail link with Russia. They're trying to build out a rail link with China. Now, they can't move much, but open source and Iranian media has revealed that they have several hundred oil tanker cars that are sufficient for moving probably the equivalent of 100 to 150,000 barrels of oil a day if they were running all out.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was favorable for birthing the largest tankers. So that's what it was originally designed for. It's also close to Iran's main oil fields. So it's fed by a number of pipelines from the coast that bring crude directly from Iran's major oil fields in the province of Khozestan in southwest Iran. Geographically, it's well positioned. The facilities there are designed to handle a lot of oil better than any other facility in Iran. And that's what makes it so important. And that's why the US is so interested in it because there is a belief, there is a theory that if you seize Carg Island or if you destroy it, but I think they're thinking more about taking it, then you have sufficient leverage over Iran that you can get them to do what you want because you've cut off their financial lifeline. You've eliminated their ability to export oil. Ergo, they will be forced to do what you want in order to start exporting oil again.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. Their ghosts hunt to the beaches to this very day. So Carg Island is a very small island. It's smaller than Manhattan. It's just off the coast of Iran, about 15 miles off the coast. It's at the north end of the Persian Gulf. So a little bit close to Kuwait, that neighborhood. And it is Iran's principal oil exporting terminal. It handles around 80 to 90 percent of Iran's crude exports. Iran exports around 1.5, 1.6 million barrels a day. Almost all of it goes through Karg. And there are kind of two big reasons for that. Because Iran does have other export ports that it can export crude products, LPG from. Karg is the big one. The two reasons for it is designed to handle VLCCs, the biggest oil tankers. It has several berths that can handle, I think, up to seven tankers at a time. It's a very large facility. It was originally built, incidentally, it was built in the early 1960s by Western companies that were active in Iran at the time, specifically because”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a place that's very close to my heart, Joe, because I researched a little bit about it when I wrote my book, which is all about, you know, the 50s, the 60s, the sort of origins of Iran's oil industry. I didn't get around actually mentioning it, though. Unfortunately, I think I had to cut that reference for space. I hate doing that.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With tourism, with finance, with tech, with hotels, all of that will go away if we keep being attacked. If the US and Israel keep bombing us, we are going to turn the Gulf into a live fire zone and eventually that will make your economic development plans impossible to achieve. They're imposing all these pain, they're imposing all this cost. The second reason they're doing this is they are indicating to the GCC that their relationship with the United States is untenable, that so long as they allow the U.S. to have bases in the region, so long as they allow the US to support their security from the point of view of Iran, they are US allies, they are U.S. instruments, and that makes them legitimate targets”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It that they are more resilient, that they can take the hit, that it doesn't matter that the U.S. and Israel have air superiority. There are two reasons for this one more immediately the GCC is a more tempting target. These are soft targets, energy infrastructure. It's fairly easy to do damage to a level that causes the facilities to have to be shut down for repairs. The GCC do have air defenses, but the targets the Iranians have been going after are not hardened in the way that U.S. bases or Israel are hardened. Israel is extremely well defended with its multi-layered air defense systems, with its civil defense systems. Israel has kind of a fortress state in many ways because it has sort of lived under the threat of outside attack for so long. The GCC isn't like that. And on top of that, it speaks directly, Tracy, to what you're saying. The Iranians are trying to show the GCC states, and particularly the UAE. Your model of economic development, this idea that you can turn the Gulf into an island of stability.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Relates to Iran's broader strategy, not only its strategy for surviving this war, but its strategy for improving its deterrence and reducing the possibility of this happening again, of future attacks. The bigger scenario that the Iranians are more concerned about is a scenario where Iran turns into Lebanon, or Iran turns into Syria, a country that you can just bomb, that Israel can just bomb whenever it wants to. They're very, very concerned about that becoming the new status quo. So that is what's driving their strategy. They want to restore deterrence. And their way of doing that is indicating to everyone, the United States, Israel, the GCC, but the entire world that attacking us is not worth it, that we will respond by imposing more pain, more costs on you than you can impose on us. The Iranians love to demonstrate this. They love to talk about this. And I think they are illustrating.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“War has, if anything, made that relationship with the more important. But that's not enough because they've now seen that if the US attacks Iran, they will be on the front lines. So they're likely going to have to balance that somehow. They're likely going to have to balance that by perhaps pursuing closer relationships with each other. There was already kind of some momentum before this war on regional security relationships. Saudi and Egypt becoming closer, the UAE and Israel pursuing closer ties. Saudi and Pakistan have a mutual defense treaty now. They will come to each other's protection. They will come to each other's aid if they're attacked. Although Pakistan is not attacking Iran even though Iran is attacking Saudi Arabia. So the full value of that agreement is maybe somewhat suspect. But that I think is another potential avenue that they may go down. They may look to one another to improve their security rather than depending on the United States, which is proving to be in the short term.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This war end more conclusively with the threat of Iran not just degraded but neutralized because leaving it in place is so dangerous to them. On the other hand, they likely know that that's impossible, that this isn't going to end with regime change. So what do they do? I think counterintuitively in the short term, most of them are going to pursue closer relationships with the United States because they have no other choice. They need to improve their security. Most of them right now are relying on U.S. support for their air defenses. They need the U.S. to restock their supply of interceptors. They need the U.S. to help them shoot down Iranian drones, Iranian missiles. Also, historically, all the states of the GCC depend on the United States for protection. They have their own militaries. They are generally not regarded as being extremely capable. So they do need ties to the U.S. to secure themselves.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly, exactly. And it also speaks to the longer term issues that this war represents. Because if you assume that the war is going to end in some kind of limited fashion, right? The Islamic Republic is not going to collapse. There's not going to be a regime change. The war is going to end with Iran still having a couple of drones and missiles left over. Very weakened, but still there. The issue for the GCC, for the Gulf states, with that scenario is that it's extremely dangerous. They are now facing a regional power that is comfortable attacking them aggressively if it gets attacked. Even if they had nothing to do with it. And again, it's part of Iran's strategy. They're trying to impose as much pain as they can on everybody in order to raise the costs of this ever happening again. They're thinking not only about this war, but they're thinking about future wars. They're trying to restore deterrence. And this puts the GCC states in a very, very awkward position. On the one hand, many of them would like to see”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just being replaced, very often by more hardline figures. And the problems associated with reopening the strait are just proving to be, I think, far more challenging than they had expected. If they had expected to deal with this at all, there's evidence to suggest that the administration didn't really think too much about Hormuz when it launched this war”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the Europeans were initially on board. The problem, though, was that that shifted with Trump using this maybe as a source of leverage, of trying to get the Europeans to actively join the war and bomb the Iranians, not just protect ships. Also using this to maybe move the Europeans on issues like NATO funding on issues like Russia-Ukraine. And so the Europeans moved from saying, okay, we'll help you to, you're on your own. You know, we'll come and help move ships through the strait, but only if there's de-escalation. So it's another aspect of the kind of strategic trap that the United States finds itself in. It's fighting an enemy who can't really be fully deterred or degraded, an enemy that is resisting being coerced or forced into capitulating, an enemy that can't undergo a political change through decapitation. They're killing leaders, but those leaders are...”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“US a while to weaken Iran to the point that the tankers and the other ships feel comfortable using the strait. On the question of an international coalition, bringing in more states, more countries, bringing in more ships would make this easier. The problem, of course, is that the United States, the Trump administration, doesn't have the best relationship with most of its European allies. There was an attempt initially to put together an international group to bring in the French, bring in the British, bring in others.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They've been making bilateral deals with Pakistan, with India to allow a couple of ships through at a time, demonstrating for all intents and purposes that they control the Strait of Hormuz, not the United States or not anyone else. So I think it's very problematic for Trump to decide to wind down combat operations, wind down this war against Iran, without having dealt with the strait in some way. The problem is there are no good ways of doing that. They're trying to degrade Iran's capabilities, bombing its drones, bombing its missiles to a point where ships will feel comfortable moving through the strait. But it's taking them a long time to do that because Iran has a lot of missiles and it has a lot of drones. And the geography of the Strait of Hormuz, parts of it are extremely mountainous. Iran has spent decades building positions to do this. I mean, again, it speaks back to their strategy. They've been preparing for this for a long time. This is a war that they've been thinking about fighting for a very long time. So it's taking the...”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so on the first question, I think again, speaking to how kind of problematic the context of this crisis is for Trump politically and strategically, if he chooses to de-escalate, he looks weak and he hands.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“50, 60 years. This is an environment, this is a political context where the mass of people don't really support the government and would love to see a different government, but it's difficult for them to implement change given the obstacles that they face. And unfortunately, January was illustrative of all of those realities. The attempt to effect change through popular demonstration was put down with overwhelming and lethal force.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To 20% of the population. That's probably enough for them to stay in power. The other aspect of this, and you know, this is, it's not a uniquely Iranian story, decades of repression and monitoring political dissent, restricting the political environment. What that means is that there's really no organized political opposition inside Iran. There's no opposition candidate or opposition leader who's fighting the good fight. There are some individuals, but they're not really at the level that they could organize an alternative government. The other aspect of it is there are whole institutions that are built into the fabric of the Islamic Republic, the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps kind of being the most important, but it's really just one of many who exist solely to preserve the regime from internal and external threats. They also happen to have all of the guns. So as with other authoritarian governments, not just today, but going back”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Arrested or put under house arrest. So it's an incredibly restrictive political environment and one that a lot of Iranians don't support. On the sort of broader ideological frame, there is a core of support for the Islamic Republic as a political experiment. There is still this group of people inside the country. It's hard to estimate precisely their size, but one estimate you can go on is when there are elections for president, for instance, there was one in 2024, the super hardline candidate, the candidate who is extremely anti-U.S., who's all for doubling down on hijab and other tough social policies, that candidate usually gets 14 to 15 million votes. And when the regime has demonstrations, when there are official days of celebration, when they come out and they hold marches, very often these marches are pretty well attended. People do show up. The regime can probably count on the support of a hardcore of maybe”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Both the social policies at home, very restrictive policies on how you can dress, how you can act, the kinds of businesses that cannot be operated. There are laws prohibiting co-ed activities. Increasingly, I should note that a lot of these laws are being flouted openly. People just aren't obeying them anymore, and the regime is having a hard time enforcing them. More broadly, there's resistance to a lot of the policies the regime has pursued, backing foreign proxies or regional proxies like Hezbollah or the Houthis in Yemen, spending money propping up Assad in Syria, spending huge amounts of money building up a nuclear program, which resulted in incredibly onerous Western and U.S. sanctions. And then just the general sense that there are elections in Iran, but they're not really free or fair. Lots of candidates that people would vote for are barred from running for office. There are candidates, there are politicians who have spoken out on the subjects of reform, on democratization. They are silenced.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'll avoid naming names because a lot of the think tank folks in DC are friends of mine. But I will say this, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio likes to say this a lot. I think it's a line that he thinks conveys meaning and significance. And I actually think he's right. There is a huge gap between the Iranian people and the Iranian regime, the regime of the Islamic Republic. There's overwhelming evidence to suggest that most Iranians don't support most of the policies that the regime pursues. Okay.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Done that, but it's probably insufficient. Right now, when I imagine the president is thinking about is what can I do against Iran that allows me to claim a more decisive victory and offers me a politically and also strategically viable off-rep? The problem I think they're dealing with right now is that there are no good options to pursue that outcome.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So Iran is absolutely being weakened by this war. But I don't know if that's enough for the president to justify the war, the war's scale, the economic cost, the risks that were associated. If the war ends with just Trump saying we've weakened Iran, we're not going to have to deal with them again, that's insufficient because he is probably getting advice inside the White House and from the Pentagon that if the war ends now, Iran will likely rebuild. They rebuilt the damage that was done to them following last year's war. They rebuilt most of that damage within six months. It'll probably take them longer to rebuild the damage from this war, but they will almost certainly do it. Also, if the war ends now, Iran will leave probably feeling emboldened, having felt that their strategy of targeting the strait, targeting GCC states, worked. So if the war goal is just to weaken Iran militarily, they”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There was a way to kill Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, and that in the wake of his death, a group of Iranian leaders would come to the fore and would pursue policies that aligned with US interests. There was a belief that that was possible. Now, the problem, which they encountered immediately, was that the individuals they expected to lead that political shift inside Iran were also killed alongside Ali Khamenei in the opening hours of the war. So the opening, the opportunity to achieve a Venezuela disappeared in the opening hours, leaving the president, I think, and the United States with a problem regarding war goals.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think, and there's been some good reporting on this, so I think we can accept it as fact, although it's irrelevant for the reasons I'll state. Going into this, there was a belief in the administration and perhaps a belief from the president himself, that there was an opportunity in Iran to replicate the experience in Venezuela.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This sense that Iran is tougher, more resilient, more able to withstand pain, and that eventually they will outlast. Not only in the United States, but more specifically the US president. That is entirely what is driving Iran's strategy from the opening of the war.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of looking weak, then taking the taco and taking the short term win and seeing the economic indicators, the financial indicators swing back in his favor. I think the size and scale of this conflict, the fact that it's not just sort of the adventure in Venezuela or putting pressure on Russia, it's a war. There are dozens of US warships, hundreds of planes, thousands of U.S. personnel. GCC states allies to the United States that are under a consistent fire. It's a big deal. And to taco now would not only, I think, expose the president to criticism in a way that maybe he hasn't been exposed over previous foreign policy adventures where he's always sort of managed to escape looking very tough, looking very assertive. If he does back down right now, it feeds directly into the Iranians narrative of victory.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, yeah, again, going off of historical experience, here was an individual, a person who had been in the public eye for decades, who always seemed to be preoccupied by the price of gasoline. You go back over the last 30, 40 years, Trump is always talking about gas prices, right? Keeping gas prices low, how gas prices reflect poor governance, poor economic performance. You got to keep gas prices low if you want to be successful. He talked about it a lot in his first term. He talked about it a lot last year coming up into this crisis. And then suddenly we're in the context of a war, straight a four moves is closed, 20% of the global oil supply is being disrupted or shut in in some way. Gas prices are climbing to highs that we haven't seen in years. Oil is over 100. And then suddenly Trump is acting like that doesn't matter. Like he doesn't care. It's curious. I think it comes down to a couple of things. I think it comes down to in this context, he is maybe more confident.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure thing. I will say, the only thing that's somewhat more challenging for an analyst in my position, more challenging than diving into the psychology of the Islamic Republic, is diving into the psychology of Donald Trump. But I'm going to give it a shot.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With a very, very rapid ceasefire that allowed oil prices to fall. And in the past, Iran had done aggressive things. It had fired missiles at Israel. It had fired drones. But usually in a calibrated kind of proportional way. And I think there was over the first week of the war, there was this belief that, oh, Iran's not going to go that far, right? That they are going to ultimately they're going to be deterred from being too aggressive. And I think on both sides, this understanding that Trump was going to de-escalate quickly and that Iran was going to be restrained, both of those assumptions proved to be very inaccurate. And now that we're in the third week of the war, I think it's really settling in how bad this is, how bad this is going to be, and how much work it's going to take to de-escalate.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think the kind of collective understanding initially was that even though the war began with Israel Like, this isn't going to turn into a prolonged conflict. That's part of the reason why oil prices didn't really respond as aggressively initially as I think they've responded since. Why futures didn't move very much in the first week or so of the war? Because I think everyone was maybe in a state of shock and denial that the situation was as bad as it really was and that things were going to be wrapped up, things were going to be de-escalated. And I think on some basis that was stemming from historical experience, like the war between Iran and Israel last June was also very intense, but it ended very quickly.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Only in the event that the regime feels that its survival is being threatened. And most of the time, I've been saying we're not there yet. Whatever crisis this is, it's not that bad. But this war, this attack was interpreted by Iran as a threat to its survival, a threat to the regime's survival, and it responded in a way that it has been saying it would respond for a long time. So I have been shocked, but if I were a better Iran and energy analyst, maybe I shouldn't have been.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I think I'm officially shocked after the events of the last 24 hours where you saw both Israel attack the South Pars gas field in Iran, which supplies 70% of Iran's gas supply. And then quite quickly within hours, Iran responding by striking the Raslafan LNG processing facility in Qatar. But of course, over the last few weeks, we've seen widespread strikes on energy targets throughout the region. And then, of course, the closure of the Stratoformus, which, as you mentioned, and I've had very similar experiences to Rory in this way over the last few years whenever anybody asked me, you know, is Iran going to close the Strait of Formuz, I would say only as a last resort.”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They weren't relevant before. They were very boring, and only a handful of people cared about them. And now the number is slightly more than a handful, perhaps”
2026-03-20 · Odd Lots · Greg Brew on Surging Energy and the 'Strategic Trap' of the War in Iran · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source