What the geopolitics podcasts and publications said today, and where they disagree.

Iran-backed Houthi forces launched a missile and drone attack on four Saudi cities, wounding 73 people and striking energy facilities; Saudi officials called it a dangerous escalation and vowed to take whatever measures necessary to defend the kingdom, per Mike Baker on The President's Daily Brief. Saudi-backed forces are simultaneously mounting a new offensive inside Yemen aimed at retaking the capital, Sanaa, though the Houthis dispute this account and say they have repelled the assaults. In a separate Duran episode, Alexander Mercouris independently reports the Houthis have retaken territory including Mocha and tightened control of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, enabling direct strikes on Saudi oil installations that threaten global energy markets.

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Ryan Perkins argues that Iran's failed regime-change effort and its closure of the Strait of Hormuz — outcomes long predicted in Western policy papers — were the actual goal of a financial campaign led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, using the resulting fertilizer and energy price shocks and China's offshore-RMB exchange-rate exposure as leverage against Beijing. In the same episode, Alexander Mercouris counters that deliberately engineering such a crisis is reckless, pointing to Bessent's role in the 1992 European exchange-rate crisis, Japan's 2012 turmoil, and Iran's crisis this past January.

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Scott Ritter argues the Trump administration's diplomatic initiative toward Russia is not a serious peace effort, citing the CIA's core mission to 'kill Russians' and continued U.S. backing of pro-Ukrainian positions in Europe as evidence it is instead a bid to manage the collapse of Ukraine and the European political system. He contends the U.S. made a strategic mistake rejecting Putin's Alaska compromise — the last chance, he says, for a managed outcome preserving Ukraine — and that Russia, now emboldened by global shifts, will not repeat that mistake and must instead achieve a full victory on its own terms to purge Europe of NATO and EU structures and force U.S. recognition of Russia as an equal.

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Paul Craig Roberts argues that Trump's domestic agenda has been derailed by Netanyahu, who is using the United States to pursue a 'Greater Israel' campaign against Iran, trapping Trump in an unpopular war that jeopardizes his and the Republican Party's political standing. Roberts says major U.S. foreign-policy institutions are now openly admitting defeat in Iran and calling for a retreat from global hegemony, evidence he takes as the neoconservative consensus fracturing — though he speculates Trump's ego or the Israel lobby could still block a rational withdrawal. He and Diesen agree eroding deterrence is dangerous and will force a messy reset, which Roberts says must come soon before opposition grows.

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Ryan Perkins says BRICS's alternative payment architecture, which had momentum during Russia's presidency, stalled once the presidency passed to Brazil and then India — a delay he suspects reflects U.S. pressure. He notes India absorbed the Hormuz-driven fertilizer shock by buying feedstock at double the pre-crisis price and subsidizing farmers, calling the rupee pressure that resulted 'the first visible sign the trap is working,' with Brazil facing similar strain entering planting season. Alexander Mercouris adds that Russian BRICS officials reportedly told him Brazil and India privately feared personal U.S. sanctions if they advanced the new payment systems, causing acrimony after the 2024 Kazan summit.

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