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Escalating tensions between Israel and Iran are ramping up concerns about a wider Middle East conflict. Meantime, stocks are kicking off October under pressure, as markets proceed with caution amid these heightened geopolitical worries. Here with more on the risks that investors are facing, we're joined by Ian Bremmer. He is founder and president of Eurasia Group and GZero Media. Ian, it's great to see you. Um, we always like to get your views on these kinds of situations that we're currently in. I do want to start with the Middle East because there we are seeing um, tensions ramp up. We of course had Iran uh, fire a number of ballistic missiles, uh, towards Israel. Doesn't seem that they have done much damage, but now we could see in Israel retaliation. Where does this go, and how should investors be thinking about it?

Well, they killed a Palestinian, uh, apparently, uh, and, uh, in, in the West Bank, but, uh, there were two light casualties in Israel that we know of and no fatalities. Um, and, uh, why was that? Well, even though this was a lot of ballistic missiles, so it was a significantly greater strike that brought with it greater danger than we saw back in April, it was clearly telegraphed to the Americans many hours in advance, which of course meant very easy for the Israelis to have the alerts, get people in safety. Of course they have extraordinary missile defenses, the Americans also involved in that. The Jordanians also knocked down a bunch of missiles crossing over their territory. So you put it all together, um, it was very hard for the Iranians to cause any significant damage. Having said all of that. And this was a retaliation. It was a retaliation specifically to the Israelis assassinating, uh, Hamas's leader, uh, in Tehran, uh, during the presidential inauguration in Iran. Uh, and of course also we can't sleep on the fact that there's been this significant escalation in the northern front of Israel against Hezbollah, including a ground offensive, lots of air strikes, and the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, uh, their leader. So, you know, the intention from Iran, uh, is they're not, they don't have any good ideas here. They, they, they have no useful diplomacy that they can deploy. They want to try to deter the Israelis from further attacks. They have no good way of doing that. Um, their principle deterrent against Israel, Hezbollah, is getting utterly pounded right now and can't do very much in respond to Israel. If they do absolutely nothing, they look incredibly weak, both in terms of their position vis-a-vis the access of resistance they ostensibly support, um, and also domestically, especially with a very old and ailing supreme leader that isn't hanging on for much longer. So they clearly tried to meet in the middle. They tried to do something that was more significant than April, but that wouldn't cause so much damage that the Israelis and the Americans would respond. Having said that, the Israelis are in such a strong military position. They're on a roll as it were, and, and the prime minister is very popular in this environment, unlike what we've seen over the last year, that he's looking for excuses, both to hit Iran further and degrade their military, maybe even their nuclear capabilities, and also bring the Americans into the war. And that is exactly what we have to watch out for over the coming 24, 48 hours. Is what does that retaliation look like? Is it the Israelis taking the lead? Are the Americans able to contain them? Are they playing a direct role? And, and what kind of impact, um, do we have? Clearly the Iranians will try to minimize, uh, the nature of that retaliation, but depending on what happens, it may be very hard for them to do. So one other point I'll make, the Iranian government claimed that 90% of their missiles hit their targets in Israel. They claimed that this was a spectacular attack, which of course could not be further from the truth. But it's very important to see why they did that. They're trying to show the Iranian people and their allies in the region, their proxies in the region, "You see, we did all this damage. We supported you." When the reality is, they've done nothing of the kind. And so they are clearly trying to show everyone that this is all that's going to happen and, and hopefully calm things down. Hopefully have stability going forward.