00:00OK, well, I mean, it's been, what, nearly four weeks since the start of Operation Epic Fury.
00:06I mean, thousands of people have been killed.
00:08The Israelis said today they've been striking a submarine development facility in Isfahan.
00:13I mean, militarily, what's actually been achieved these last few weeks, Robert?
00:18A lot of destruction. A lot of destruction of real estate.
00:23A lot of destruction of things that we have seen, like the big oil dump,
00:28the big, sorry, oil storage facility, dump in that respect, in Tehran,
00:34which put up an enormous cloud, an enormous amount of pollution,
00:38an enormous amount of damage to infrastructure.
00:41And whatever happens at the end of this, whether there's an operational pause
00:47or even an armistice or a ceasefire,
00:50there's an awful lot that has to be put together again on both sides.
00:55And this is the thing that is so alarming, is the sheer level of destruction
00:59of vital infrastructure, vital equipment for the export of oil, gas and related products
01:11that is going to take months, if not years, to put together.
01:15And one looks at it too darn well, as one looks also at Ukraine,
01:21and the two conflicts are running in parallel, but are also related.
01:27Awful lot of destruction.
01:29America is going to have very little to do with the reconstruction,
01:33because particularly in the case of the Gulf,
01:35Gulf, I don't think many of the GCC partners after this one
01:39want a Trump America messing in their affairs, in putting it together.
01:44And that opens up a whole new prospect,
01:47and quite an ominous one, of who does the reconstruction.
01:51Europe will want to be in there, but Europe is broke.
01:54The principal partners, Britain, France, Germany, Italy,
01:57all have debt and fiscal problems of their own.
02:02Where does the money come from?
02:04It will come from China.
02:05The trouble is that this conflict is so complex,
02:09and so below the radar of most international and public media,
02:14including social media,
02:15that we haven't really got into the full implications yet.
02:19I think as the summer goes through,
02:20we will realise that this is the major energy crisis
02:24of the last 75 years, if not more,
02:27and it's going to affect the global economy for generations.
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