US Begs China for Help

Are we seriously supposed to believe that no one in the Trump administration took the probability of Iran restricting global oil supplies into account?

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called on China to prevent Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important shipping routes. His comments came after Iran’s state-run Press TV reported that parliament had approved a plan to close the Strait but added that the final decision lies with the Supreme National Security Council.

Any disruption to the supply of oil would have profound consequences for the economy. China in particular is the world’s largest buyer of Iranian oil and has a close relationship with Tehran.

Oil prices rose following the US attack on Iranian nuclear sites, with the price of the benchmark Brent crude reaching its highest level in five months.

“I encourage the Chinese government in Beijing to call them [Iran] about that, because they heavily depend on the Straits of Hormuz for their oil,” Rubio had said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday. “If they [close the Straits]… it will be economic suicide for them. And we retain options to deal with that, but other countries should be looking at that as well. It would hurt other countries’ economies a lot worse than ours.”

I would be too sure about that, given the way China obviously foresaw the need to avoid utilizing the more traditional sea routes.

On May 25, 2025, the first freight train from Xi’an, China, arrived at the Aprin dry port, Iran, marking the official launch of a direct rail link between the two countries. This new logistical artery significantly reduces transit times (from 30–40 days by sea to roughly 15 days by land) yielding a direct impact on transportation costs. This railway is part of a much larger and broader East-West Corridor that is designed to link China, physically, with a trade route directly to Africa, and to Europe, without having to use the more traditional sea trade routes.

An oil tanker carries between 500k and 2 million barrels of oil. 18.5 million barrels transit the Straits of Hormuz every day, which means about 18 tankers per day. China utilizes 16 million barrels per day, although obviously not all of it comes through the Straits.

A rail tanker car carries 700 barrels and Canada ships 150,000 barrels by rail every day from the Albert oil sands. Taking the faster rail delivery time into account, it would require 9,150 rail cars to replace those 16 daily tankers, and a total of 274,500 rail cars to meet the daily oil requirements without a hitch. That sounds like a lot, until you observe that the China Railway Rolling Stock Corp. is the world’s leading manufacturer of rolling stock, with the capacity to manufacture over 500 high-speed train sets, 12,000 subway cars and 50,000 freight cars per year.

I think it is safe to assume that China has already built the 300k or so freight cars required to replace the 1,120 sea tankers that historically supplied it, given that they didn’t just start building the Aprin-Xi’an link in 2024 and the two countries signed an economic cooperation pact in 2021.

However, China doesn’t transport all its oil through the Strait of Hormuz. It only obtains about one-third of it that way, 5.1 million barrels per day. So it only needs a total of 87,500 freight cars to substitute for that particular source. Which, one notes, the Chinese could have completed before the launch of the railroad if they started manufacturing them as recently as August 2023.

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Change of Plans

Big Bear and the Dark Lord won’t be doing their usual Monday night stream tonight due to a scheduling conflict. Instead, we’ll be streaming live Tuesday night on UATV at 6 PM Central.

Don’t forget to a) subscribe to UATV and b) get on the new payment system!

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MIGA is Backpedaling Fast

Vice-President Vance: We did not attack the nation of Iran. We did not attack any civilian targets. We didn’t even attack military targets outside of the three nuclear weapons facilities.

US Vice President J.D. Vance does not support his country’s involvement in the conflict between Israel and Iran, Reuters has reported, citing two informed sources.

Trump, Vance, and all the newly-converted neoclowns aren’t MAGA. They’re MIGA and now the whole world knows it. Trump has made the mistake of thinking that just because he jumped in front of the parade, the parade will go wherever he wants to go.

They’re all confirmed to be the owned property of Clown World. No matter how they spin and produce their own magic word spells, it’s not going to fool anyone who genuinely wants to make America great again, because foreign wars on behalf of AIPAC and Israel are exactly what has turned America into a pale and weak shadow of what made it great in the first half of the 20th century.

The stealth jet squadron slipped into enemy skies, moving into attack formation at ‘high altitude and high speed’, with lighter, more mobile F-22 fighter jets sweeping in front of the B-2s to shield them from any surface-to-air or air-to-air fire. There was none. Not a single shot was fired at any of the aircraft or warships involved in Midnight Hammer from the beginning of the operation to its end.

And that wasn’t suspicious at all? Nothing has been able to fly safely over Ukraine or Russia for the last three years, but USAF jets are just so gosh darn sneaky that Iran didn’t even lift a finger to try to stop them…

Sounds like another green flag to me.

Simplicius has reached a similar conclusion:

Iran knew the exact epicenter the B-2s would have to converge on and yet was unable to even attempt to engage them? Could the scriptwriters have written a more schlockily improbable series of events? They could have at least added a few ‘glory moments’ of F-35s and F-22s shooting down a couple Iranian fighter craft for effect.

Recall that the US was having severe problems even operating just outside of Yemeni airspace, with not only F-35s nearly shot down, but two F-18s lost to panicked defensive maneuvers, as well as one other shot down by US air defense, and a fourth “nearly shot down” in the same operation.

So, Houthi air defenses can engage F-35s, but an entire sky swarming with B-2s, F-35s, F-22s, and other planes were not detected at all by Iran, whose IADS is likely dozens of times stronger than Yemen’s? Keep in mind the Pentagon spokesman also said the strike package included fourth generation craft that flew all the way to central Iran, which presumably refers to F-16s and F-15s—but for some bizarre reason Iran “never fired a shot”.

Sound suspicious to anyone else?

And after all these strikes, countless claims of Israeli “total aerial control”, there is still not a single video of a foreign craft over the skies of Iran. The B-2s were even seen flying back over New Jersey on their ‘heroe’s return’, yet no one in a nation of 90 million saw or heard anything on this most ‘mysterious’ of nights.

Something’s rotten in the state of HasbarAmerica.

So, yes, I’m convinced Iran decided to take US’ offer and allowed safe passage of the strike package to rain a few insignificant ‘token’ strikes on Fordow with the understanding that this was the US’ price for exiting the conflict.

Now, there are rumors that Israel may use the given ‘off-ramp’ as pretense to likewise conclude a new deal and end hostilities, given that Israel has exhausted itself and is now losing a war of attrition against Iran.

Indeed, there has been what appears to be a certain amount of excessive bluster and over-the-top playacting of late.

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Another Nail in the Coffin

I suspect those who are enthusiastic about the wonders of science wouldn’t be pushing Cheddar Man if they understood its implications:

Mr Targett, a 42-year-old history teacher in Cheddar, Somerset, has been shown by DNA tests to be a direct descendant, by his mother’s line, of “Cheddar Man”, the oldest complete skeleton ever found in Britain, and now also the world’s most distant confirmed relative.

Even the Royal Family can only trace its heritage back to King Ecgbert, who ruled from 829AD to 830AD. By contrast, Cheddar Man, a hunter- gatherer who pre-dated the arrival of farming, lived in 7150BC.

The news caught everyone by surprise. Mr Targett’s wife, Catherine, said: “This is all a bit of a surprise, but maybe this explains why he likes his steaks rare”.

The discovery came about during tests performed as part of a television series on archaeology in Somerset, Once Upon a Time in the West, to be shown later this year. DNA found in the pulp cavity of one of Cheddar Man’s molar teeth was tested at Oxford University’s Institute of Molecular Medicine, and then compared with that of 20 people locally, whose families were known to have been living in the area for some generations.

To make up the numbers, Mr Targett, an only child who has no children, joined in. But the match was unequivocal: the two men have a common maternal ancestor. The mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from the egg, confirmed it.

Excellent. Now sequence both genomes. If the theory of evolution by natural selection is to remain unfalsified, then there must be at least 10,000 fixated mutations present in Mr. Targett’s genome that are common to all of his neighbors that not present in his ancestor from 300 generations ago.

If evolution were actually science, this is a meaningful falsification that would be tested. But, of course, it won’t be, because the primary role of modern scientists is to publish papers declaring that their findings are consistent with Darwin’s fairy tale, not subject the fairy tale to genuine scientody.

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Team Trump and Bibi

That’s the word right from the short, fat Trump’s mouth:

President Donald Trump addressed the nation on Saturday night after announcing strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites via Truth Social. Speaking from the Oval Office accompanied by Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the President said, “Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.” He also reached out to Israeli leadership, saying, “I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team. Like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we’ve gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel.”

Meanwhile:

  • Iranian state radio: the Fordow nuclear facility sustained no significant damage in the US strike.
  • IDF officials: there is a slim possibility the Fordow facility was not destroyed.
  • Iran’s Center for the National Nuclear Safety System: confirmed the attack, but said that emergency inspections at the affected facilities have found no signs of radioactive contamination or leaks.
  • The International Atomic Energy Agency: no increase in radiation levels has been reported at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.

Remember, the one thing the media never, ever, reports is the real story and the actual truth. And everything about Clown World is fake and gay.

The one thing that we can be sure of is that if a) nukes are real and b) the Iranian capacity for building them remains sufficiently intact, the Iranians are going to acquire some nukes in short order. I’d be shocked if they didn’t already acquire some from North Korea or Pakistan.

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The Iranian Expedition

It appears Trump decided to bend the knee to Clown World in the end. Every empire seems to end this way, with imperial overstretch. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Pax Americana is going the way of its predecessors.

It’s disappointing, but after the vaxx debacle and the failure to cross the Rubicon, hardly surprising.

This is yet another betrayal of the American people by yet another president who clearly does not have its national interests in mind. Even if it initially looks as if things are going well for this course of action, well, Iraq and Afghanistan looked pretty good too… at first.

Trump turning neoclown also implies that the USA will renew its military and financial support for Ukraine.

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Why Pakistan Backs Iran

Despite launching attacks on each other in 2024, Iran and Pakistan have found common ground against Israel for a very good reason: Israel has attacked both countries since May 2025:

It was only early last year that Iran launched missile and drone strikes into Pakistan’s Balochistan region on 16 January, targeting extremist militant group Jaish al-Adl positions. Pakistan retaliated two days later on 18 January, conducting air and missile strikes into Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province in an operation dubbed Marg Bar Sarmachar. The tit-for-tat was remarkably friendly in the final analysis, and appears to have settled some critical border cooperation issues between the two states.

The fact that these former adversaries – who had just engaged in direct military exchanges – have now adopted “resolute solidarity” is nothing short of breathtaking.

Beijing’s embrace of Iran is grounded in energy security and strategic depth instead. Its ambitious, multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aimed at linking the Eurasian landmass hinges on the stability of Tehran and Islamabad, with the Gwadar and Chahbahar ports forming key arteries in China’s westward expansion. China also supplies J-10 fighter jets and HQ‑9 air‑defense systems to Pakistan, which played key roles in the extraordinary May 2025 skirmish between India and Pakistan – marking major testing ground for Chinese weapons. A parallel circumstance is present in Iran. China must acknowledge Iran because it is a crucial supporter of China’s energy needs and trade operations.

“The enemy of my friend is my enemy” may well define the new tripartite logic binding Iran, Pakistan, and China in resistance to Israeli and western designs.

Tel Aviv’s recent strikes on Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure mark a new phase in a decades-long western strategy aimed at dismantling Muslim powers resistant to colonial domination. Iraq, Syria, Libya – all were destabilized under similar pretexts. The 2001 plot, conceived by the US, its European allies, and Israel, has entered its second phase, targeting Iran initially and Pakistan subsequently. In a 2011 interview with Channel 2, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid bare the logic: Iran and Pakistan are the primary targets of this containment strategy, he stated blankly. “These radical regimes … pose a significant threat,” he said, stressing the need to prevent them from acquiring nuclear capability.

But recent Israeli provocations have instead triggered multipolar resistance to those plans. Speaking to The Cradle, Abdullah Khan of the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) reveals that Israeli drone operators had recently attempted to sabotage Pakistan’s nuclear facilities during the India–Pakistan crisis:

“Israeli drone operators were stationed in Indian operation rooms during the recent Pakistan–India conflict, trying to target Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. However, prompt action from Pakistan thwarted their efforts, preventing them from causing any damage to the nuclear assets of Pakistan.”

I don’t know if it is hubris or desperation, but at this point, it wouldn’t be a big surprise if Israel attacked China for one reason or another. China, after all, is the primary threat to Clown World.

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The Japan That Can Say No

Unlike the USA, Japan isn’t interested in bankrupting itself for Israel:

Japan has canceled an annual high-level meeting with key ally the United States after the Trump administration demanded it spend more on defense, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had been expected to meet Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and Defense Minister Gen Nakatani in Washington on July 1 for the yearly 2+2 security talks.

But Tokyo scrapped the meeting after the U.S. asked Japan to boost defense spending to 3.5% of gross domestic product, higher than an earlier request of 3%, the newspaper said, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported on Saturday that President Donald Trump’s administration was demanding that its Asian allies, including Japan, spend 5% of GDP on defense.

I don’t know when it will happen. But I have absolutely no doubt that Japan is going to flip to an alliance with China sooner or later. And I’m pretty sure that it will happen suddenly, and be presented as a fait accompli that no one could have ever seen coming.

Japan has to be cautious, because it has a giant US military base on Okinawa to consider. But the overall trend appears to be clear, as the US model that so influenced the Japanese since the end of WWII has proven to be an increasingly disastrous one.

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Turkey is Next

Simplicius explains why the world is increasingly supportive of Iran and disinclined to permit Israel anything that looks like a victory against Iran:

Israeli figures and media are already salivating at the prospect of what’s next after Iran, with various posts about Qatar, Turkey, and Pakistan all being lined up for disarmament and dismantling. Israel likewise continues begging Trump to ‘finish the job’ as if the plan all along was merely for Israel to “open up” the gates for US firepower.

And of course, that is the case—Israel never had the endurance to go twelve full rounds with Iran, and the hope was always that US would step in, which is why everything now depends on Trump and his tiny cohort of string-pullers.

But again, judging by Araghchi’s defiance, Iran does not seem in a particular hurry to genuflect to the Empire. This can only mean that Iran likes its chances, and may not have suffered as much attrition thus far as claimed.

It’s been interesting to observe that Iran has not availed itself of as much help from Russia as the Russians were willing to offer. This may have been nothing more than the usual susceptibility to Clown World’s temptations and promises, or it might be more indicative of an unwillingness to play the junior partner. It’s also possible that Iran prefers to rely upon China as its primary defense partner, especially in light of the new rail link shipping Iranian oil there.

Regardless, it’s now clear that as long as Team Netanyahu and the other fanatics are in charge of Israel, Israeli success will never lead to peace of any kind. And at this point, it would appear to be preemptive self-defense if Turkey and Pakistan were to enter the war against Israel, given the stated imperialist objectives of the current Israeli regime. And the decades-long accusations about Iran’s expansionary inclinations and general insanity are starting to look more and more like emotional projection by the Israelis.

If President Trump does attack Iran, it will be the biggest mistake of his life and he will lose the greater part of his support even before he loses the war. He will certainly lose mine. Remember, there are no guarantees that the US+Israel can defeat Iran alone. And it is all but certain that the two “greatest allies” cannot defeat a broad alliance of Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Russia, and China.

There are far too many possibilities to make any substantive predictions or attempt to estimate probabilities, but I will say that if the US wages war on Iran and Iran’s prospective allies follow suit, the probabilities would favor an eventual military defeat, and among the possibilities would include a) the complete destruction of Israel and b) the collapse of the USA as a singular political entity.

If I were Trump, I would follow George Bush the Younger’s example, declare Mission Accomplished regardless of the realities of the situation, and allow the Israel-Iran conflict to gradually return to its previous low-simmering hostilities. The fact that no ground invasion of either side is currently possible renders that the optimal outcome under the current circumstances.

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