Monday, April 13, 2026
4/13/202627 min
This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.
Part I (00:13 – 10:48)
Iran’s Chokehold on the International Economy: Iran’s Control of the Strait of Hormuz is a Net Disaster
- The War Is Turning Iran Into a Major World Power by The New York Times (Robert A. Pape)
- A Prospectus for the ‘Tehran Toll Booth’ IPO by The Wall Street Journal (James Mackintosh)
Part II (10:48 – 18:23)
Pirates and the History of the U.S. Navy: Freedom of Navigation and the Genesis of the U.S. Navy
Part III (18:23 – 20:35)
The Iranian Conflict is Coming For Your Wallet: The Economic Chokehold Iran Has Over Global Shipping is Going to Force an Economic Crisis on the World
- Our Vacations. Our Food. Our Mortgages. The Iran War Will Change Our Lives. by The New York Times (Bill Saporito and David Stubbs)
Part IV (20:35 – 27:13)
Artemis and Reverence: The Secular World Struggles to Rightly Capture the Wonder of Space Exploration – Christians Know Why
- Another Giant Leap Reminds Us How Small We Are by The New York Times (Ruth Graham)
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAlbert Mohler· Host0:00
[intro music] It's Monday, April thirteenth, two thousand twenty-six. I'm Albert Mohler, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, as we went into the weekend, of course, we all knew the big story was going to be the talks between the United States and Iran. And those talks were designed in order, number one, to make certain that the current ceasefire is real and might hold, and then secondly, hopes that there could be a negotiated, more lasting peace, uh, some at least lessening of the hostilities between the United States and Iran, Israel, of course, being a related party as well. But as we now know, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance spent hours upon hours in conversation with senior Iranian officials, and the bottom line is that they made no apparent progress. Now, I want to put that into an historical context for just a moment. When you're talking about two belligerents in a military action like this, you're talking about an incredibly high level of hostilities, and those hostilities are not merely military hostilities. They're also social and communication hostilities. Furthermore, when you look at Iran, you have to date those or post-date those hostilities all the way back to nineteen seventy-nine. So we're talking about generations involved here. We're talking about no one alive basically involved in this process, and that includes the President of the United States, who, though, of course, alive at the time, was not a part of any of those