# An End of Empire Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-sunday-afternoon-podcast-with-greg-reese-5721719/an-end-of-empire Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-sunday-afternoon-podcast-with-greg-reese-5721719/an-end-of-empire.md Podcast: [The Sunday afternoon podcast with Greg Reese](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-sunday-afternoon-podcast-with-greg-reese-5721719) Published: 2026-03-17T22:20:36+00:00 Episode link: https://gregreese.substack.com/p/an-end-of-empire Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/191310162/6368f0ba53dfe19dead2221498414f11.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-sunday-afternoon-podcast-with-greg-reese-5721719/episodes/an-end-of-empire Duration seconds: 319 ## Resource Despite having the world’s most powerful navy, the United States cannot force the Strait of Hormuz open, which every US military expert knew would be closed if Iran was attacked. This is why the US Navy is miles away. And it is why America’s NATO Allies are refusing to participate. The Iranians may have suffered the brutal Shock & Awe of the United States military, but they have been preparing for decades, and as the US is already running low on weapons, Iran has plans for a long term asymmetrical war, a defensive fight for their very existence. Iran has the moral high ground and they are holding practically all the cards. By his own admission, Trump expected a quick, decisive victory. He ignored warnings from experts, and instead, listened to his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. With a smile on his face, the President of the United States has said that it’s fun to kill the Iranians, and that they are genetically inferior. By any historical standard, America has never had a president speak in such a manner. It has been confirmed that the United States has murdered almost two hundred school girls with Tomahawk missiles fired at an elementary school. Trump said he can live with it, and Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, said there would be ‘no quarter, no mercy’. While ongoing US-Iran nuclear talks were taking place in Geneva, Israel launched major airstrikes against Iran, followed by the US. Iran and the US began negotiations again in Geneva early last February, and Iran agreed to degrade its nuclear stockpiles. Two days after negotiations ended, Trump attacks Iran. Deceptive diplomacy has been used to attack Iran twice in the past year, it would be unreasonable… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-sunday-afternoon-podcast-with-greg-reese-5721719/episodes/an-end-of-empire/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-sunday-afternoon-podcast-with-greg-reese-5721719/an-end-of-empire.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.