Michael Every returns to Horizon for a wide-ranging conversation that starts in the Strait of Hormuz and ends, improbably, at FIFA. Iran, he argues, won the negotiation from a losing military position then overplayed its hand, handing Washington the chance to reverse the board.
From there we range across the theology behind the Iranian regime, why rational-actor economics keeps misreading the world, China’s startling energy resilience, the refinery bottleneck few analysts price in, and the slow drift toward a more Malthusian century of stockpiles and blocs. Beneath the headline drama of a fracturing West, Every sees the opposite: an America and Europe quietly cementing themselves together, because the maths against China leaves no other option.