Snapshot · The MeidasTouch Podcast
Top US military commander Brad Cooper recommended stopping the bombing campaign near the Strait of Hormuz partly because depleting interceptor missiles made resuming large-scale operations a risky option.
Where this was said
At 8:00 · chapter starts 5:10
The back-to-back meetings Rubio held with Wang Yi and Lavrov at the SCO summit were not diplomatic courtesy calls — they were a coordinated messaging operation. Meiselas reconstructs what he believes was conveyed: the US is out of precision munitions, Chinese and Russian satellite imagery has documented the destruction of US bases in the region, and America has ordered both US companies and the European Union to suppress satellite footage of the damage — a de facto admission of how bad it is. The message, as Meiselas frames it: China is now the security umbrella in the Middle East, not the United States, and a new regional framework is being built without Washington at the center. Rubio's visible discomposure after those meetings, Meiselas argues, tells the whole story. Meanwhile, China's broader strategic play is becoming visible to regional actors: Gulf states, Arab nations, and even previously US-aligned partners are pivoting toward Beijing and Moscow as the US's credibility and military capability have been publicly exposed as hollow [1] — Ben Meiselas "After back-to-back meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov at the Shanghai Cooperation Organizat…" 06:30 .
After back-to-back meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, Rubio emerged looking like a deer in headlights. Both counterparts delivered the same message: the US is out of munitions and China is running the show now.
The US burned through roughly 80% of some of its precision interceptor missiles during the Iran campaign. Top military commander Brad Cooper quietly recommended stopping the bombing near the Strait of Hormuz because returning to large-scale operations with depleted stocks was simply too risky.
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