(0:00 - 0:07) Hello everybody, I am Madison Holmes. And I am Maycee Holmes. And you're watching Holmes Squared. (0:08 - 1:15) I feel like that was relatively optimistic. There you go, so how about that? Today we are talking about foreign affairs. Oh, kind of as always a little bit. Yeah, I think actually that's one of the things I wanted to start with because we have a very, one thing Maycee's actually been bugging me to do for a while is to basically thank you everybody for watching and thank you for our specific, we have Cyril, he's one of our biggest fans, also one of our best friends. And he watches every episode. And he's been giving a critical feedback as we go along. So thank you for that. And thank you to Mark Spark, as Maycee always says, because he comments on every video more than once. You do, we acknowledge you. We acknowledge you. But one of the things after Cyril was giving some of his feedbacks that I considered is because this week we're kind of talk, we were doing research into Iran, Syria, Israel. And I remember a conversation Maycee you had with a friend a long time ago on why do you even look into geopolitics? Yeah, that's a good start. (1:15 - 1:37) And why do you? So we're talking about and doing research on foreign affairs this whole week. And the kind of the question that I thought we should start with is why? Partly because, I mean, for me anyway, again, don't laugh everybody, but you can laugh. This is a movie. (1:37 - 2:29) Oh, my God. It's called The Kingdom. And it is on bombings in Saudi Arabia that occurred near and around oil sites, because they were drilling oil in Saudi Arabia. And we had U.S. citizens there helping extract. Plebs doing the thing, regardless of how their knowledge is of where they are in the grand scheme of things, if that country's really getting manipulated as a good oil deal. They don't care. They don't know. They're just there doing their jobs. But the beginning of the movie, there was like a four minute montage of from like 1970. (2:30 - 5:24) No, 1932 to 2001, when the when 9-11 happened. And it was just this huge montage of what happened in Saudi Arabia from the founding of Saudi Arabia, and then to its oil companies, the infiltration with the U.S. and the U.K. with those oil companies. It's a movie, so there's some Hollywood representations. But all the time I find myself watching these shows, even when I started doing Matthew's work, he went back to Babylonia and Greek Athens and Mesopotamia. And I only started understanding a little bit because I had watched the 300. And the 300, he talked in that movie with Gerard Butler, there was an Oracle of Delphi. And with the military, the priest oracles played both sides, and they would pay each military. They'd pay the Spartans or whomever they would get the money from. And then they would basically dictate how the war went. And they would tell them all of the oracle utterances that they would tell these genuine people trying to navigate their lives. They would tell them whatever they wanted to either win the war, keep the war going, so they could make money because all wars are bankers' wars and that's the oldest time. But for this foreign affairs thing, why do we look into it? It's partly because everybody watches movies, and I don't know if everybody puts the same mode of attention that our family does. We never watch a movie now and not see some sort of real life implications. That's partly because we know the brain, so we know human proclivities. So we can always see where there's nudges or where something really resonates, the typical archetypes. So it makes movies interesting, but it even makes things like oil companies and military industrial complexes, either back in Athens or even today, as Macy will talk about later, in places like Ukraine or Iran, it makes it more personal. That's what everybody likes about movies. You get to embody and you get to peek in on this world that you would have otherwise known nothing about. None of us lived way back with the Oracle of Delphi, and yet now, because I saw that, I can relate to some of the history that Matthew was talking about. So I found the same with foreign affairs. People associated with this distant thing, oh look guys, Israel bombed Iran, well now they've bombed Syria. (5:25 - 7:07) And there's that quote that Dad brings up, you know, a million people dead is a statistic, but one person dead, that hits home. These foreign affairs before, without things like movies, and that's why we reference them so often, and stories, because that's what people are. We have these narrative ways of understanding things. It was those that helped relate things to this, so they're not so arbitrary, or these distant things that we can't get a grasp on. It actually has everything to do with us, and that's not just for our understanding, but because the people suffering at the hands of an Israel bombing, even though that's not here in Canada, we suffer from similar totalitarian-like things, because we have our own military industrial complex. But the CIA and MI6, and this is one thing I learned this week doing all the podcasts we did, Mossad. Mossad is Israel's intelligence agency, so CIA, MI6, Mossad, all of them. We have one here, we have CSIS in Canada. We are all suffering from the same thing, and we are also contributing via our ignorance. And that's the one thing why foreign affairs mean Macy going into it, and this is why some, even young people, for them to understand why we do this thing, and why we talk about Israel, Syria, Iran, why we even look into this. It's because it really is here at home, because a lot of it's here. And if we don't know this... She's pointing to her brain for those listening. (7:07 - 7:59) My brain, yeah. If we don't know our brains, and we don't know what's going on at home, and then we don't know what's going on outside of the home, then we're blind, and we can't help anybody, including ourselves. So I guess that's one thing. For me, anyway, foreign affairs, via things like Funny Enough movies, stories, and all the narratives that we began to put around, learning all the names of the dictators and leaders of foreign countries to understand how are they making the decisions, why are they doing it that way. It's because it really does affect us, and it does affect home. And that's, I think, one of the reasons for me why doing this thing, and why we've spent the whole week, and even the last couple months, talking about this. (7:59 - 13:24) Because this is going to be at least the third time we're talking about Iran, I think, and Syria. Yeah, I think it's a good place to start, the question as to why. And I think that, for me personally, when I learn what it is that I learn about it, I think that someone could go, it's so far away, how does it bear any significance to what's going on in your life? But it's like, economics is very much akin to the sovereignty of a country or of a nation. If you do not have the ability to create what it is that you choose to create, if you don't have the means of production, you are not a productive society. That is kind of basics of economics, where it's like, you need the energy and the supply to create and meet demand. But when you don't have that ability to do so, then it really limits even your, I guess, sovereignty, and it maximizes a sort of unhealthy codependency that can get manipulated. Because if you're only good at producing one thing, then the minute that somebody comes in and tries to manipulate you, you only have one thing to offer, you have nothing else that can help you get out of the situation. You're like, oh no, all I do is produce this, it's feudalism, all I do is produce this one thing, whether it be a natural resource like oil, right? It's like, all I have is this thing. And the minute that people try to come in and exploit that, I have nothing else to say, fuck you. I have this, this, this, and this, and that, that are mine, that bring me wealth, that bring me prosperity, that I can use to kind of say, you can't hurt me with whatever it is that you're trying to pull right now. And so that is something that also just plays in the sovereignty of your own individual life. And so it does actually play out in the real world. So as below, so as above, I know that's some weird cult, that's actually some cultish stuff, but motive attention of what I'm trying to get at. And so why we focus on it is because also if other nations are getting manipulated through their resources, like through potentially speculation or lies that change pricing and change the ability for nations to be able to trade amongst each other, then we do get consequently affected by that. Because if there's lies and stuff going on over there saying that, oh, there's a war and you know what's going to happen to the price of oil, this is what's going to happen. And people do operate a lot of the times on fear, especially if they're not paying attention. And so then that comes down all the way down to us, nice little Western countries. And it does affect our pricing system as well. Right. And then also, if other countries can't set an example for themselves, right, then we don't get to learn from each other. Because if like when we talk about high speed rail, right, we're like, how would that actually improve the quality of life in various different ways? And then you do the measurement and you do the calculation. And you're like, if countries can't do this thing, if can't, if countries can't have the freedom to creatively create, to creatively innovate, then other countries can't see that. It's like, I think it was a podcast I listened to with Bellis on Rogue News. And he was saying that someone had to run the four minute mile in order for other people to see that it could be done. Yeah. And then other people, funny enough, started running four minute miles. And it's like, that right there is how we get better is, oh, shoot. Like, I didn't even know that that's a thing that we could do. Right. And then we decide, hey, we want to do this thing too. And then someone starts thinking, oh, what if you could do five minutes? Right. And then six or probably less, actually three than two. And like, right. So it's like one that gets squandered as well. So does other people's ability to imitate that doesn't mean that we couldn't come up with it ourselves. Right. But we're supposed to be lifting each other up. Well, yeah. And the manipulation comes in. So, okay, this is something that a lot of Western people, especially people, friends of ours can relate to. You hear of, okay, oh, Africa, third world country, look at the poverty there and stuff like that. And then we look at, okay, well, what are they allowed to produce? You look at some of the conditions that the IMF loans that they get have, and they say in the fine print, yeah, we'll give you this money, but you can't use it to, I don't know, find more oil or look for this mineral. (13:25 - 13:29) Or produce this type of infrastructure. Produce this infrastructure. You have to go green or whatever. (13:29 - 14:27) You have to go, if you want to build energy, you can't do start with, you can't work your way up, maybe start with coal and then go to natural gas. No, you have to go straight to windmills and solar panels, which is so economically inviolable, but they do these conditions. And then we downstream, we get organizations like the World Wildlife Fund, and we get magnets and pieces of paper, pamphlets that go on our fridge and go, we are feeding this African child. And it's not because they're just a poor country that can't fend for themselves. It's because we have, there's foreign affairs going on. And it's also our foreign affairs and foreign policies that we and the other countries are doing, these organizations, and then they use our sympathy or empathy, I should say, to then get more money from us. (14:28 - 16:39) So they exploit the country, sell the fact that this country is in a terrible state and they can't be sovereign, as Maycee said, on their own. And then they further steal from us because we want to help them. Hence, money laundering via things like charities and such like that. And even here in Calgary, we did an interview with a fella named Keener Hachey. He's running for our city councilor in our ward. And he brought up the fact that it was like, I think they spent like $5 million or something. That could be the smaller number on a rebranding for Calgary. And they changed the sign from red to blue. Now we're blue skies or something like that instead of Calgary Energy. $5 million on a rebranding? I just think that's money laundering and that's going somewhere else. But just to bring in Maycee's thing there about the importance of energy in a country, bringing themselves up, not only does that set the example, so they can do things and innovate in a way that we couldn't because each country has their own geography. So they can innovate for different problems that they would have in their region versus what we would innovate for our region. They could do things we couldn't. But now, because they aren't because of all of these, the international syndicate and their tentacles, then we also get exploited again because of what we want to fix. Because we do want to fix it. And most people want to be environmentally conscious if they have the means and we're not in survival mode and stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you want to get into what we learned about with Iran situation, but me and Maddie, we were watching a podcast with Breaking History with Matthew, Cynthia, and Gordon. She's pulling up so she can screen share that. And in it, it kind of just goes into the idea of it's called Iran Century of Empire Oil and Revolutions. You can find it here on Matthew's- Rumble Channel. (16:39 - 19:05) Rumble Channel or on Badlands Media. Or on Badlands Media. Yeah. And Cynthia, Maddie keep screen sharing because I'll just make quick reference to this. She wrote a series of articles that she alludes to when she's doing this episode. So there's Iran's Century and a Half Fight for Sovereignty. That's part one, the sword of Damocles over Western Europe. And then why Iran's development of nuclear energy will create stability and prosperity in the Middle East. So those are a part three series and I read them. And it's a very long history of how Iran has actually been trying to fight for their own ability to produce and control their own oil because we have to really, I don't know, I feel like something that is important is to remember colonialization. And yes, specifically Britain's colonialization. It's something that we do need to keep in mind because if it's still going on under a new guise, then we need to be paying attention to the pattern. I mean, yes, it's Britain doing the thing, but regardless if this was happening with any country doing this to anyone, this is something that needs to be kept in mind. But so in the article, they're talking about how there were various attempts by some shahs and some prime ministers in Iran that were trying to basically say, okay, we'd no longer want Britain to have control over our oil because there was something where I think she says in 1872 Nasir al-Din Shah granted a British baron the right to Iran's economic estate. So the farming, the transportation, the industry, and then the British set up the Imperial Bank of Persia under British control. And so that's where they were sitting. And then in 1901, Nasir al-Din Shah, there was something called the Darcy contract, which granted this guy named William Knox Darcy the right to own and control Iran's natural gas and petroleum. So that's just where it was that they were sitting. (19:06 - 22:35) And then Darcy discovered a huge oil field. He set up, I think what's called APOC, which is the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. And then I'm pretty sure it was Winston Churchill who purchased 51% of the company, effectively nationalizing it. And they only granted Iran 16% of the royalties on the oil. That's really low. That's really low. And then in 1919, the Anglo-Persian Agreement got signed, making Iran a protectorate under the British in security. So basically a protectorate meant that they were under Britain's security. But in that Anglo-Persian Agreement, I was checking it out on DeepSea on AI, and it's like Britain got a large control over Iran's, or I guess at the time, Persia's economic policies. And they had a lot of influence over how things were going to go. Because if you're even in the position where you need protection, in some ways you're going to get manipulated by the person who's saying, well, I'll protect you, but it's going to cost you. What is it going to cost me exactly? Yeah. They didn't have control over their energy. And energy is the foundation of a society, which is what you said. So not having only 16% of your own energy. You'd be better able to protect yourself if you had your energy, and you had some, I guess, money, which represents your time and energy as well. That's your economic and power leverage, if you want to call it that. And so Iran didn't receive oil from the company APOC. They actually had to import from the Soviet Union, which is so stupid. You shouldn't have to freaking import a resource that you produce from somewhere else because someone's got a monopoly over your country. That is colonialism. And then I think fast forwarding again. So in 1932, Reza Shah, he was announcing trying to cancel British accession to APOC. I don't think it went very well for him. I think at some point he might have been able to negotiate a higher price, but it still didn't get them any. Again, you're negotiating with what? It's like, oh, well, to your abuser, it's like, wait, will you stop hitting me three times out of the week? It's like, no, don't hit. No, you don't want it at all. That's all I'm saying. And then I have here that I kind of want to get to this figure because I don't want to go down a whole path because the whole point is I would encourage you guys to listen and read the articles. But there was a quote that I kind of wanted to go down, and it was, it might have been Mohammad. I think it was Mosaddegh, though. Aha, Mosaddegh. So this figure named Mosaddegh was very much in tune with the idea of nationalizing Iran's oil. He was like, okay, enough of this British freaking control over our resources. We've had enough. So he led the national front in the 1940s, and he wanted to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian oil company. (22:35 - 23:49) And the people were in agreeance to this, right? So they elected Mosaddegh into parliament in 1949. And so then it said, I put in my notes here, he set up a committee to look into the supplemental agreement and got a majority vote against it in 1950 because the supplemental agreement was, again, just basically like, let's argue for semantics of what it is. Like, will you hit me three times of the week instead of five, right? It's like, that's what it was essentially arguing, and he was just like, no, we're not doing this. And so then in 1951, they voted to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian oil company and named it the National Iranian Oil Company. And he became prime minister of Iran that year. 1951, right? In 1951, yes. And so it's funny because the British were trying to argue their case before the heck in the UN, but Mosaddegh, actually, he has this great quote. So I'm going to just read it. I think, Maddie, if you want to, you can pull it up on the screen. It's the first article of Cynthia's series. She's just getting the screen share. And the reason why I have told you this story to lead up to this quote is because I think that this is just such a very good quote. (23:49 - 30:16) So I think, Maddie, go all the way down to Mosaddegh, enter Mosaddegh, and then this quote right here. Yeah. So it says, so at the UN Security Council, Mosaddeh responded to Britain's imperial ambitions over Iran with these eloquent words: "My countrymen lack the bare necessities of existence...Our greatest natural asset is oil. This should be the source of work and food for the population of Iran. Its exploitation should properly be our national industry, and the revenue from it should go to improve our conditions of life. As now organized, however, the petroleum industry has contributed practically nothing to the well-being of the people or to the technical progress or industrial development of my country...If we are to tolerate a situation in which the Iranian plays the part of a mere manual worker in the oil fields... and if foreign exploiters continue to appropriate practically all of the income, then our people will remain forever in a state of poverty and misery. These are the reasons that have prompted the Iranian parliament...to vote unanimously in favor of nationalizing the oil industry." So I just think that that quote right there speaks volumes to the fact where it's just like, look, like this guy is trying to just do a thing and say, please, like, can we have what it is that we've earned for our people? Like, there's not even a problem with sharing, but it's like, can we have at least some of it? Because we can't even support ourselves basically, right? And so then I think that there was another quote that can be brought up. I might be able to pull it up on my phone again. It might be near the bottom. Ah, so my only crime. Yeah, that was it. So Mosaddegh was, I believe, going through proceedings, if I can remember this part right. Right, so. Yeah, after 1951, he nationalizes the oil. Obviously, that's not okay. And, you know, the coup happens, I think, in 1953, but trying to, when he gets, he gets, as you see here, like tried, because they're trying to get him out. Yes. So what happened was, yeah, there were two attempts at a coup via the British and America, actually. And again, if you're wanting to get more details as to like, oh, what? It's like, no, legit. They tried to coup this guy because of what it is that he was doing with the oil. And so then eventually, actually, the second coup kind of succeeded. And it was, I have in my notes, the second coup by the CIA and Kermit Roosevelt was done with demonstrations and a royal decree signed by the Shah was made calling for the removal of Mosaddegh. And then military was dispatched to his house and he was put in a military prison. And, but clearly it just says that, yeah, Mosaddegh was promptly found guilty and sentenced to death later, less than to three years in prison, followed by house arrest. And then it says his response to the kangaroo court proceedings was my only crime is that I nationalized the oil industry and removed from this land, the network of colonialism and the political and economic influence of the greatest empire, the British empire on earth. And so it's like, like, even when he's in the middle of the courtroom, he's just like, no, I know what it is that I'm in trouble of. And it's not, it's none of which of what you're saying, because I believe if I'm not mistaken, it was, um, lies that were being used to claiming that Mosaddegh was creating like treacherous acts of torture and torment, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. And I think they also called them a communist. Yeah. Uh, yeah, that might've. Yeah. I think so. Well, during the time because the Soviet union was still around and so they were getting oil from them. So you must be a communist. Yeah. Cold war pushing all that. Like the, I think it was, um, and might've been TPAJAX. The plan was that like, that's what it was called. And it was used to slander Mosaddegh as favoring the USSR and being a traitor to Islam. Um, the plan was to, um, drive a wedge between him and the national front plan to demonstrations against him. Um, we're happening for bought members of parliament to hold a vote against him. And that was the first, um, attempted coup, but it didn't work at first. Yeah. This guy was so popular. Like those are, if you, to reshare this little part, they were like, he was sentenced to death in the kangaroo court initially that it was less than two, three years, and then got even less than to house arrest. And the reason was is because this guy was so popular with the people for trying to do what's right for the Iranians. Um, that they feared even doing a memorial. So when he, he, they, he stayed in house arrest until his death. And then when he died, they buried him in the floorboards because they didn't want to do a public memorial because that would, that would spark something in the people. That's how much they like the people. They didn't even want this guy to be a martyr. They were like, no, he's too, he's too dangerous. We're going to put him in the stuff. But yeah, so they used at the time, like for a lot of these operations, cause this doesn't just apply to Iran. Like they actually did this with Saudi Arabia. They did this with Syria and there's more evidence and rabbit holes that we can go into into in another episode, but they used the fear of communism as the excuse where just like, well, we can't have a communist middle east. Like that would be, that would be terrible. Um, and so that's what they were using against Mossadegh as well. And then we already talked about color, color revolutions and things like the NED. And that's essentially what those principles are. And, um, I think it was in, I believe the, uh, the, I kind of wanted to go into OPEC and what that was in the EMS because, um, OPEC was basically, um, in 1960s, it says five oil producing countries, uh, some of which included Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran. Um, they were trying to stabilize the price of oil. (30:17 - 30:49) Yeah. It was OPEC, the organization of petroleum exporting countries. So all of the oil producing countries in the middle east banded together to try and fight the, the oil monopoly. Yes. And they were having a battle against the seven sisters, which was seven major oil companies, um, 80 that were controlling 86% of oil produced by OPEC countries, um, British petroleum owning 40% and Royal Dutch Shell owning 14%. So 54% total for Britain, technically, if you think of that. (30:49 - 33:00) And so there was this guy named Mohammed Reza Shah and he wanted to industrialize Iran, um, industrialize, um, Iran and France and Germany were making offers to provide, um, technology and like nuclear tech and in exchange for, um, stable oil contracts. Um, and then- Which is so sad for, to like think about now because France and Germany, they have terrible, terrible energy crisis on like on a regular. And just to think if something like this, that agreement had gone through the European monetary system where France and Germany could trade in exchange for some cool, um, nuclear technology for potential nuclear energy in the future for these countries that have an abundance, they could get oil and then maybe they wouldn't be where they are here now today, which is super sad. Yeah. Like the, um, thing that was going on at the time with these, um, I think Germany and France and Western Europe was they were trying to create the European monetary system and that was actually meant to replace the IMF and World Bank. And that can't happen because then what you would have is if you have successful countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq actually prospering, then all of their surpluses get deposited into Western bank, uh, Western European banks, right? And then that takes away from the more monopolized, um, industries that were already set in place by the Anglo-American empire. So, it's just like there's a little bit of a fight between oligarchs here. And because like this, this is one of the things where it's like, sure, the EMS, what they showed was, um, promising intentions where it's just like, okay, we're going to offer loans for these countries so that way they can, um, develop more infrastructure. Um, and keeping in mind that sometimes it's like you don't want to, um, I guess, lose your customer base, right? So, it's like if you are dealing in, that can go both ways. (33:00 - 33:30) I can get manipulated and yet at the same time, it can also be like if you're dealing in good trade, then like you already right there have a bit of a clientele, if you will, right? It's like you built, it's like it happens on the downstream. Like we have, um, people in the freedom community that are our friends. And like if I entered an industry where it was just like, oh, I'm going to go down a health path, right? It's like, then I already have a whole list of people that know me, that are, um, I guess respect me, um, are encouraged to see where it is that I'm going to go. (33:30 - 41:24) They would probably support me and what it is and what endeavor that I'm choosing to do because they're, um, I've invested into them and they've invested into me, right? And now they're choosing to invest into me, right? Which will in turn hopefully invest more into them, right? Because if it's a health thing, then how I'm helping reciprocate your reciprocations, I'm giving you, you know, a good body. Um, and so it's that same premise when it comes to these different countries as well. It's like, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. Um, win-win. Yeah. Cooperation. Yeah. And so I think it was, um, kind of like a little bit of a last quote that I wanted to give when we were just going, when I was going down this, uh, rabbit hole. I think it's the last article that she writes. Yeah. And if you go down damn near to the whole bottom, I've managed to screen sharing that yet. She was scrolling. I think those are long. Oh no. I think it's like way down to the bottom. Okay. Yeah. Cynthia's articles are, you know, we listened to hour and a half to two hour podcasts and I, you know, kudos to dad. It's a little too far. I'll scroll while you're talking. Sure. Yeah. Kudos to dad. Cause dad can get through anywhere for like three to four podcasts in a day because of how much backing up I do so I can re-listen. I only get through two, but, um, it's just to say the insanity of Cynthia's articles. They are, if you were to listen to them, um, cause Substack gives you that option. Sometimes you read them. Sometimes you get an AI reading, unfortunately, but they're like the size of a podcast. That's how long her articles are. Hmm. Right. Sorry. I just wanted to give this context cause I thought it was important as well. Um, so if we can just find, I'm looking for the arc of crisis. Right. Yeah. So bear with me. Individuals listening. Yeah. The arc of crisis brought to you by the big new Brzezinski. So this was in her second article and it just says the arc of crisis is a geopolitical theory focused on American Western politics in regard to the Muslim world. It was first concocted by British historian Bernard Lewis, who was regarded as the leading scholar in the world on Oriental studies, especially Islam and its implications for today's Western politics. Um, so then the big new Brzezinski was a U S state. Uh, he worked for the U S state department, um, and was an advisor to it. He was adopting this arc of crisis theory, um, by the military American military NATO in 1978. Um, it says it's acknowledged was primarily aimed at, uh, destabilizing, destabilizing the USSR and Iran. Um, and then it says, if I just kind of go down a little bit here, um, there was someone who was, um, name, he was a Sean, his name was, I don't know how to say that back hit that back hit tear. I don't know how to pronounce it. Maybe. Um, and he was acting, um, uh, I guess as well under the national friend. He was prime minister for Iran for a time. And he was, um, basically doing a lot of good things for the Iranian, um, people. He, um, uh, I guess, what is it? He began, uh, pushing through a series of major reform acts. He completely nationalized all British oil interests in Iran, put an end to the martial law, abolished the SAVAK and pulled Iran out of the central treaty organization. Um, the SAVAK just so everybody knows, you know, how I said, Mossad was the Israeli intelligence agency. SAVAK is the Iranian intelligence agency, about the equivalent about. Yeah. And so the SAVAK, it's interesting for that added context before I kind of just go on to this little thing that I wanted to kind of touch on was, um, the SAVAK was being used against other figures that were coming up in Iran's government specifically. Um, it might've been Mohammed Reza Shah and he was trying to, as I said, industrialize, um, Iran, but he had the SAVAK put in place as kind of like the, um, police, um, on his behalf, but they were, um, quote unquote, basically like MI6, um, the SAVAK and he trusted them, unfortunately. So what happened was I believe the SAVAK were causing chaos and it created what was the hostage crisis, if I'm not mistaken. And, uh, the Shah that Mohammad that was in place was getting blamed for, um, what was happening. Um, and fortunately he was defending the SAVAK, but the SAVAK were put in place intentionally to create, um, a hostage crisis that would make, um, give the excuse for America under Carter to implement these economic acts that basically, um, completely ruined the whole idea of what OPEC and, um, and, uh, France and Germany and Western Europe were actually trying to accomplish. And, uh, you might be thinking like, oh, well then why would the Shah be, um, defending, you know, um, the SAVAK? Um, Cynthia says that it was a bit of his own naivete of what an understanding, not, um, understanding what they actually were. Um, and so what happened was, is Carter under Carter, the US, I think it was, uh, yeah, with the taking of the hostages, the Carter administration as pre-planned under the active crisis, arc of crisis set into motion, it's scenario for global crisis management. Um, the hostage crisis, a 100% predictable response to the US decision to accept the Shah into America, um, was the external threat to, uh, was the external threat the Carter administration needed to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. And when they say the predictable decision to accept the Shah into America, um, the Shah, I believe was, um, I forgetting what the scrutiny was. It was probably another, His health started to decline and they were offering to bring him into the United States. Yeah. And they knew that, that when that happened, American bases were going to get, um, basically, um, attacked for some reason because of America bringing in the Shah. And then, uh, this gave them the excuse to basically with this new authority, President Carter announced the all US Iranian financial assets amounting to over $6 billion, including in branches of American banks abroad. Instantly, the world financial markets were thrown into a panic and big dollar, um, depositors in Western Europe and the US, particularly the OPEC central banks began to pull back from further commitments. And then it says here that most international lending halted until complex legal matters were sorted out. Um, the most serious consequence by far from the Carter administration's emergency actions was in scaring other OPEC governments away from long-term lending precisely at a time when West Germany and France were seeking to attract deposits into the financial apparatus associated with the European monetary system. Uh, then it says, um, that, uh, Carter administration's insistent demands that Western Europe and Japan invoke economic sanctions against Iran was like asking them to cut their own throats. Yet the race political tensions succeeded in breaking apart the economic alliances and the slow bloodletting of Europe commenced. (41:24 - 41:59) So it's just that I thought was an important, um, piece of context, um, for the overall story because it was like, okay, so when you have this individual who is actually trying to do something right for Iran, it got really messed up in the weeds of who was coming in, basically bad actors, bad actors into his administration. Right. And then what happened was an excuse was made, almost like we've seen it before with the whole, we're going to enter an emergency act, right? It's like, it's what happened during COVID for us. (42:00 - 42:04) Even the trucker movement. Or yeah, exactly. And then they seized the assets. (42:04 - 43:37) Exactly. So it's like, if you can use the excuse of an emergency to create like, oh, look at this individual, they're, um, terrible. I'm just going to go ahead and, uh, or look at all these uprisings and that's happening. Right. It's like, this can't happen. Then they go and create this emergency. And under the Carter administration, they were basically economically choking Iran and Western Europe for that matter, because it's that they'd be cutting their own throats if they sanctioned Russia, I mean, sanctioned Iran. Right. And so this is hugely complex and it sounds a little bit complicated. Right. But at the point that's trying to get across is that it's like, again, there's so much, like even just economic warfare that is so much tied to the, um, I guess, um, physical warfare. Right. It's like the saying that all wars are bankers wars. Right. And so resources is, yeah. Resources is money. And these countries who are trying to get ahold of their own oil so they could get sovereign, control their own destiny. And then all these coups break out and then these hostages, and then they have to start the, these movements, independence movements, control, get somebody else in there. Yeah. Yeah. And then they started to basically use, um, nuclear as the excuse for, of going in as well, where it's like, they can't have nuclear energy because they're going to build a bomb and blah, blah, blah. (43:37 - 44:41) And it's like, even the evidence for that during that time was just not, it wasn't true. They weren't, they weren't showing to do anything. Most of the organizations, I think the IA, I always don't EA. Yeah. They were like, no, there's, there's no evidence that this is a thing that's happening. They're cooperating. And even some, uh, officials were coming out going like guys, like, there's no reason to be getting all caught up on this. We're, we're, we're not doing anything wrong here. Yeah. We covered a little bit of that and I, I don't know if it was last episode or episode before that. It gets blurry after a bit, but we'll also talk about that more in the next episode. Cause this'll, this is, um, only been a little bit on the Iran history and their own fight for their own sovereignty. Um, so we'll have to do another part. Yeah. And next episode, just to kind of bring you're at 44 minutes for sure. Just to bring it home. I just wanted people to think about this for a second. I, we live in Alberta, so I'm kind of kind of, I'm going to come bring it back home a little bit. (44:42 - 45:31) This concept that we're kind of trying to paint and that again, we're bear with us. We're still learning how to paint it. Um, is no different than even technically what's going on in Alberta with Ottawa, right? In our own oil. Cause we've had so many things like even bill C69, bill C48, bill S243. These are all things where it's like blocks pipelines, tanker bands, blocks oil and gas investment. We even have the carbon tax. Right. And so there's just so much that is also hindering our progress and it doesn't make us feel good. It makes us want to, you know, do something about it. And we know that there are going to be forces that are going to try and squander that as well. Right. And so it's like these countries are facing the same thing. (45:31 - 45:45) And so we have to recognize when it's like, well, when did they have movements that they decide, no, I want to actually take hold of my resources, just like how we want to take control of ours. Right. It brings it all the way back around to what we were talking about in the beginning. (45:45 - 45:59) Why do we look at foreign affairs and foreign interference and interjections and subversion? Because it's happening to us here at home. And most of the time that is the case. Like you said earlier, what's happening there is almost always happening here. (45:59 - 46:59) So to look at Iran's oil history and their struggle, we're right here. And then that can lead to creating alliances. It's like that's something that is just not talked about enough where it's just like, well, what if though there are parts of the world that understand what it is that we're going through? Right. And then they themselves have actually, according to these dates, been going through it a longer time than we have. Right. And so then that can create what kind of cooperation? It's like we just don't know. And so, yeah, that's I think that that's how a good way to, you know, kind of end that. So. Yeah. And so thank you for joining us, everybody. We will definitely expand more upon our Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, because there's so much more to this. But that was a good way to segue to introduce the complicatedness of, you know, economic resources and foreign interference and how that plays out. So until the next episode, this has been Holmes Squared.