S15 EP169: Hour 2 - Iran Owns the World’s Choke Points

Oil slips under $100 a barrel on talk of negotiations, but Erick argues the Iran story is Groundhog Day: the extremist faction now running Tehran has no interest in talking, is rebuilding its missile shield with Chinese technology, and is betting it can outlast Donald Trump until Democratic Socialists gut the war. He walks the map of the world's great choke points, the Strait of Hormuz, Bab al-Mandeb, the Strait of Malacca and the Suez Canal, explains how the Houthi seizure of Perim Island closes the Red Sea, and makes a blunt proposal: buy drones from Ukraine, which will build over 5 million this year while America builds fewer than 100,000, and finish the job. Then a Cobb County mother named Harper calls with the story of a straight-A middle schooler who drowned in honors classes, and Erick returns to his most radical idea, abolishing public schools altogether.

• Iran's extremist faction consolidates power, pushes out its own president, and rebuilds its missile shield with Chinese help while Marco Rubio's warning looks prescient
• The choke point map: Strait of Hormuz, Bab al-Mandeb, Perim Island, the Strait of Malacca, the Singapore Strait and the Suez Canal, plus Brad Thor's new book Choke Point
• Why the Saudis and Emiratis cannot fight the Houthis themselves, and the Cold War-era security guarantee that keeps Gulf militaries small
• Buy Ukrainian drones: Ukraine builds over 5 million, all of NATO under 500,000, the United States fewer than 100,000, and the Flamingo missile strikes on Moscow
• Harper in East Cobb, the honors class gap, Mississippi outperforming California and New York, and Erick's case for one-room schoolhouses, classical Christian education and abolishing public schools