'Operation Pulverize': Trump's Path to "Finish It Off" Is Clear

President Trump says Iran is asking to talk after a series of strikes over the weekend tested the fragile ceasefire in the Persian Gulf, writing on Truth Social that the U.S. will hold fresh rounds of negotiations with Tehran tomorrow in Doha. This is as the peace is holding for the moment. Markets are jumping and oil is holding steady as well. The White House is staying confident that a deal is within reach. The president obviously wants to see the peace process play out, and the Iranians would be best to sign a good deal with the United States of America because the president has proven he's unafraid to use the might of our military. Gas prices will continue to tumble. We're seeing crude is lower than it was prior to the start of this excursion, as the president calls it. The memorandum of understanding will continue to be discussed. The ceasefire is in place, and we hope that we can get to a good deal. Caroline, your thoughts. Here we are again. It was disappointing that this exchange occurred back and forth. We're back in a we're going to talk in Doha. Can we trust the negotiators in Doha, even though Kushner and Whitkoff, you know, always mean well and try to do the best for the country? This is something that has been going on now for quite some time, where Iran keeps violating. The president keeps saying, I'm sort of holding that nuclear option on reserve, but he doesn't use it. Yeah, well, the MOU is always supposed to be just a precursor for a much more substantive agreement to come later. So that's all well and good. But I think to your point, it is significant that Iran has broken basically every single promise in the MOU, not only not ceasing hostilities or all military operations, but they haven't stopped threatening as well. And they're hanging that over our head. And I just do think there was an oversight in the original negotiation, which was to not really include Israel in the Lebanon situation, because obviously Hezbollah, one of the proxies of Iran, is going to continue to hit Israel hard. They're going to continue to send strikes. And Israel has no choice but to defend itself. And so then Iran can cite that as, oh, look, one of the U.S. allies is violating the terms of the MOU, even though they weren't initially included. But it's this tit-for-tat warfare that we see going on. And I do think it's interesting that Trump alluded in his Truth Social post, and it's hard to know what kind of commentary that he gives on there is really his true opinion on the matter. But there really are only two options, which is you give the bag away, you give a lot of concessions in exchange for peace, but then you have a lot of similarities with the Obama nuclear deal. Although I will say, the criticisms of this MOU so far, especially from the left, are that this is essentially the same as what Obama did. It's not in the sense that the context has fundamentally changed. Also, they've been severely weakened in advance of the conversation, so that changes the Obama game completely. Yes. But, Dagan, I want to kick it over to you, because many people are impatient and they keep saying Trump should have finished the job. He shouldn't have done a ceasefire at all. He gave them time to rearm and to get to the position where they are and they can punch back at us. But as long as we're sitting in a position where you duly noted in the first hour, whether it's the stock market, the oil price, or the bond market, that's not telling President Trump to do anything that isn't along the course he's on right now. The course that, in my opinion, the White House has taken is to resupply the world with crude oil and distillates and fertilizer. And as long as—Javier Blas made a joke over the weekend, the Bloomberg energy columnist, about hostilities shall only happen outside of market hours over the weekend. And it's like, fighting, fighting, fighting, truce, talks, Doha, Qatar, market open. An hour before futures open, too. So we joke, but—so crude is moving. Product is moving out of the Persian Gulf. And I will point to—and prices are contained, if not falling. Oil is up. Crude oil, West Texas Intermediate, was 67 and change before the conflict started. And gasoline was under $3 a gallon. It was $2.98. So current national average for regular or unleaded is $3.86, falling, barely falling from yesterday. So we're starting to kind of slow down those declines in gasoline. But crude is still moving, particularly from Saudi Arabia. And these were the—Saudi is the second biggest producer in the world, behind the United States. And the first group of Saudi supertankers, the very large crude carriers, have exited the Strait of Hormuz, now in the Gulf of Oman, on their way to Asia, to Japan. One exited Sunday, Monday, in dark mode. Another has gone dark. Two others remain visible in the Saudi oil port. So that's what's most important in the next 60 days, is even though they're—my reaction when the hostilities broke out on Friday, because I'm a nut, I was like, Operation Pulverize! But that's not good for the United States, our deficits, our budget, safety, security, oil inventories. But that was my gut reaction. And it was wrong. So you don't have to pulverize. If oil is moving and oil stays even up a couple of bucks around $70, we're doing OK, per the numbers, Lou. So the president is probably saying, we'll keep trying to talk. I do believe he wants to reach some sort of an agreement through diplomacy here. I think, you know, going with bombs is a last resort for him. Yeah, I mean, I'm with Dagan. I think at some point we may need to use the pulverize option, because we have to keep our finger on the trigger, pun intended, because we've seen them. Well, were the strikes enough this weekend to kind of, you know, semi-get them, to remind them that if you don't watch your P's and Q's, because they're coming back to the table, I scoff a little at the location, because I don't trust the Qataris. If this is going to be just a non-compliant toddler in Iran from now until the time we stop talking about, which is not going to be ever, right? We're going to come turn the MOU into an actual peace treaty. And it's going to be violated. As Caroline was saying earlier, they're finding every loophole they can to say, well, we didn't do this, but Israel did that. So here's now we're going to start firing on the trader who moves and closes down. I think what's telling Dagan's point is the administration made the right decision. We need to get supplies out into the market, right? Otherwise, we're going to handicap the rest of the global economy. And this doesn't become just a U.S.-Iran situation or Israel-Lebanon. It's a global phenomenon that's not good for anyone. But the key to that is just continuing the threat. I think the president is doing it right. I mean, I don't think it's a coincidence it happens when markets aren't open, right? Friday afternoon, like we may get an escalation on Thursday here and a poll rise is coming. Maybe it's on America's independence and it happens. But I think the threat of it, your point, the markets are always leading us. If I look at oil futures right now, we're back into the 68, 67 range all through next year. Right. Well, that's significant. And you had Mike Walls. He's the ambassador to the U.N. talking about President Trump and his patience on Fox News Sunday. And I'll just read it to you. The president's patience isn't going to last forever. Discussions are ongoing, particularly at a technical level of how to get the inspectors in. And he goes on. So the patience is not going to last forever. And you don't know if you're Iran when enough is going to be enough. And that's why I'm wondering if we're giving Iran a little bit too much credit for how much leverage they think they have. A couple of things. The leverage that they have over the straight up poor moves. I'm just not sure I buy it because the U.N. has that law of the sea where it is the sea. You cannot charge tolls. You cannot charge fees because the U.N. has to approve this. And they're not going to approve that in Oprah International Waterway, one or two countries can charge tolls. They know that. U.S. Congress is not going to approve any deal where Iran gets a toll or anything in the straight. The Gulf states certainly are not going to be agreeing that Iran gets a toll and the leverage over the straight up poor moves. And so I guess I just don't buy that they have leverage because Iran knows all of the above that we all know all of the above that that's never going to fly. And so I think they keep pulling this like right like this is their last bullet. They think that they have leverage. I think they know that they don't. But because none of the above is going to be true like a short seller, though, they don't have to have all the facts. Right. Then it might be wrong, but they just have to cast doubt about the potential. And if you cast doubt about the potential for safe passage, it's de facto control because of the mines. That's the leverage they have. But we're going to. I thought we were working on demining them and we are getting through. There's there's some that are potentially dormant. They're not obviously being transparent about what mines are there. They may not even realize which mines are there, but just the looming threat of that compromising free navigation of the seas is enough. But I'm with you that force and we could have applied more force to really open the straight up poor moves. But that ups the ante. And listen, Trump said he's willing to go there, but and not to make a comparison historically with quagmires like Vietnam. But when you go into these things, you have to be prepared to finish the job. OK, that is fundamental rules of war going back to Clausewitz, like that they teach at West Point. You have to destroy the enemy's will to keep fighting. That's how it works. I think he gets that. And I think he is willing to do it, but he'd like to avoid doing it if it's possible. And I guess that's why I'm a little surprised by the market reaction, because as long as that uncertainty is out there that he might take this step, you know, things go wrong sometimes with plans to not that I would want them to. But if he took that step and you make even just one misstep as a result of that or an accident happens or something happens, all of a sudden this market is not going to be trading the way it is right now. Yeah, but the market's ready to run. Earnings growth is the mother's milk of bull markets. And that's they've been growing off the charts. The only thing that was holding us back was high oil prices. And we've gotten rid of that now, the inflationary pressure. So this is just this bull is charging. It's ready to go. OK.