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"The noose is getting tighter" on Iran amid blockade, Middle East expert says 90%
4/15/2026, 3:55:28 AM
BS Summary: This video contains 31 faulty reasoning types, including Availability Heuristic, Fundamental Attribution Error, and Post Hoc (False Cause), with Anecdotal as the most egregious example at 21.3% saturation with 141 hits. Analysis detected 1,738 faulty-reasoning hits from 663 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 84% and a BS Rank of 90% (1,782 of 16,813 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 89.40% of the video peer group.
The White House says more than 100 empty oil tankers are heading to ports in the US to load up on American crude.
The US is the world's largest producer of crude oil.
According to the administration, the move will provide a quote critical lifeline to the world as global energy prices surge because of the war with Iran and the near full closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
For more, let's bring in John Alterman.
He is the Brzezinski Chair in global security and geostrategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
John, thank you for your time tonight.
So, we talked yesterday to Ian Bremmer and he [snorts] said that he believes the president's strategy of this blockade is to choke off Iran's ability to take in revenue, force the regime back to the negotiating table.
Do you agree?
I'm not sure it's it's an acute force because Iran has a lot of ships at sea with oil, but it sends a signal to the Iranians that the noose is getting tighter.
I think the Iranians do want to talk.
I think they're seeing signs the Americans want to talk.
I'm I'm much more optimistic than I was right after things broke up on on uh on Sunday that I think the two sides are actually going to get back into a process of talking, which is what the Iranians want.
What makes you more optimistic and what made you more pessimistic then?
Um I you know, I I think the Americans came in with a sense that this was going to be very quick, that they were going to be able to get the Iranians to give in because the Americans are more powerful.
The Iranians are really interested in being in a process, it seems to me.
They are willing to give up some small things.
They really want to be in a process.
It feels to me like the Iranians are sending signals that they want to talk.
The Americans are sending signals they're willing to talk.
We'll talk about the terms.
We'll talk about how long, but but that will get us away from the war and toward solving the war and opening up global trade.
>> Is that emblematic of the larger war, the US going in thinking it'll be quick because we have a larger and mightier military?
We thought a lot of things were going to happen very quickly.
Nothing happens quickly with the Iranians.
It's partly because they're pretty resilient.
They can take a lot of pain and they think they can take pain more than we can partly cuz they're not democratic.
They're not really worried about elections.
They're buckling down.
They've been preparing for this kind of conflict for 50 years.
We see it as a a sort of speed bump before midterm elections.
Their bet is that they could wait us out and it's not clear that the wrong.
I mean, I think that the Trump administration really wants to figure out is there an off-ramp and and if there is, how do we explore it?
Can these empty tankers coming to fill up on American crude make a difference in global oil supply and prices?
Uh as I said, there's a lot of oil that's already at sea.
My understanding is a lot of that is going to be arriving.
Uh how long it takes for these tankers to fill up, to get to ports, whether it's the right kind of oil for what what kind of refineries cuz different refineries take different kinds of oil.
I think the market is is both going to be disrupted, but also people are going to be antsy about am I going to be able to get oil in a month or two months?
And that's going to keep prices up.
John Alterman, thank you.
Thank you, Lindsay.
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