Tag: Middle East

I Think That’s a No

The short, fake Donald Trump really is a wholly-owned creature whose priorities are completely unrelated to American national interests:

Donald Trump told Arab leaders he will only broker a peace deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if they normalize relations with Israel, according to a leaked phone call.

The most powerful leaders in the Middle East, including those from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt, joined the President on a conference call on Saturday to discuss progress toward ending the US-Iran war and reopening the vital oil passageway.

In return, Trump pressed the leaders to normalize ties with Israel, a demand aimed at nations that have opposed the Jewish state since its founding in 1948.

Arab leaders were so stunned by the demand that they refused to respond, remaining entirely silent on the call, according to Axios.

After a prolonged silence, Trump nervously joked, ‘Are they still there?’

With the silence unbroken, Trump ended the call by announcing that his envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff would follow up on Israel normalization in the weeks ahead.

Interesting and informative priorities, to say the least. After the Gazacaust,normalization is obviously a complete political non-starter; 9x more people have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli government than were reported to have been killed by the white South African government for the totality of its rule there.

At this point, I suspect the only reason Iran hasn’t proactively resumed the war is because they know the ceasefire is to their advantage with regards to rearming.

DISCUSS ON SG

Rejecting the Empire’s Protection

Events appear to be generally going in the direction predicted by the skeptics concerning the failure of the Epstein Alliance’s attempt to force regime change in Iran and the resulting collapse of the imperial security arrangement in the Gulf:

Saudi Arabia reportedly just floated a non-aggression pact with Iran. This comes in the wake of Saudi Arabia watching Tehran breach multiple layers of US air and naval defenses in the Strait of Hormuz in chillingly fast strikes during the first five weeks of the Ramadan war (i.e., the war that started on 28 February). According to the Financial Times, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia — that once relied on Washington’s “ironclad” (In reality a mirage) guarantees — is now quietly exploring a regional deal modeled on the old Helsinki Accords of economic cooperation, security guarantees, stability without the empire calling the shots.

If true, this marks the Saudis effectively rejecting the US as its prime protector and accepting a new security architecture that recognizes Iran as the new sheriff in a dangerous neighborhood. When your protector looks vulnerable and weakened, you start talking to the country that just proved it can deliver…

Iran is no longer operating from the weakened military position it occupied earlier this year. Iranian missile infrastructure has been substantially reconstituted. Naval capabilities have been dispersed and hardened. Command structures have stabilized under IRGC leadership. Current assessments indicate Tehran retains approximately 70% of its missile capability and has restored operational functionality to roughly 30 of its 33 strategic missile sites near the Strait of Hormuz.

China and Russia have also quietly reinforced Iran’s resilience without openly entering the conflict. Chinese assistance reportedly includes dual-use technologies, satellite support structures, drone and missile-related components, BeiDou integration, and indirect defense assistance routed through deniable channels. Russia appears to be providing intelligence support while benefiting strategically from the broader energy shock environment created by prolonged instability.

Ironically, this defeat and retreat from the Gulf is one of the best possible outcomes of the war for the American people, whether one or two more rounds are fought before further rounds become impossible.

DISCUSS ON SG

Round Three Warning

Iran is clearly unconcerned about the prospects of the US attempting to return to the battlefield and waging more ineffective war on behalf of Israel:

BREAKING: A source close to Iran’s Ghalibaf says Iran’s “third struggle” plan announced by the IRGC will close Bab el-Mandeb Strait “by fire” and disable the seven submarine internet cables under the Strait of Hormuz, in immediate response to upcoming US strikes that Iran has assessed as “inevitable,” for this weekend. The source adds that Iran will also respond with “next-generation missiles and drones” firing hundreds daily at the Gulf energy infrastructure, and that the US and Israel are playing “Russian roulette” with the outcome being the “collapse of the global economy and unprecedented gas prices.”

And both the US and the Iranian generals appear to know the score.

The US reportedly used up more than half of its inventory of THAAD anti-missile interceptors while defending Israel from Iranian attacks during the recent war. “Israel is not capable of fighting and winning wars on its own, but nobody actually knows this, because they never see the back end,” said a US official quoted in the report.

Hence my conclusion about the desperation of the Netanyahu regime. Israel can’t defeat Hezbollah on its own. It can’t defeat Iran even with the help of the US military. And sooner or later, Turkey is going to sweep down from the north and then it’s all over in the Middle East.

Things are likely going to get very ugly in a number of places over the next decade. And it wouldn’t be a surprise if this somehow played into the 2033 timeline in the United States, especially given the way that AIPAC has now taken complete control of the Republican Party in the aftermath of the Kentucky congressional election.

UPDATE: A major military escalation by the US ARMY is imminent, according to multiple sources. Expect a MAJOR escalation in both Cuba and Iran in the next 24 – 48 hours

Army?

DISCUSS ON SG

The Ceasefire Holds

Most likely until June. But probably not much longer:

The Hajj is the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and is one of the Five Pillars of Islam — the core religious obligations that define Muslim practice. Every Muslim who is physically and financially able is required to perform the Hajj at least once in their lifetime. This obligation is drawn directly from the Quran and the example of the Prophet Muhammad. The pilgrimage takes place during the Islamic lunar month of Dhul Hijjah — specifically on the 8th through 13th days — meaning it falls on different dates each year in the Gregorian calendar. This year, it is May 24… Sunday next.

Hajj is the largest annual human gathering on earth. In a normal year, roughly 2–3 million pilgrims from approximately 180 countries converge on Mecca and its surrounding sites over a period of five days. Saudi Arabia issues Hajj visas and imposes quotas on each country to manage the crowds. While in Saudi Arabia, the Muslim pilgrims will engage in a number of observances that will end on 31 May.

On the other hand, it’s not impossible that the Epstein Alliance would regard the Hajj as protection against Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia, but that strikes me as excessively risky for the US decision-makers. And even though it might make for a spectacular false flag, the blowback on it would be too risky for even the desperate Netanyahu regime.

UPDATE: Even arch-neocon Donald Kagan is beginning to realize that it was a mistake for Israel to press the USA into this ill-considered war against Iran:

According to one U.S. official, Netanyahu’s “hair was on fire” after the call with Trump—for good reason. The Iran war may end up as the single most devastating blow to Israel’s security in its brief history. On the present trajectory, Iran will emerge from the conflict many times stronger and more influential than it was before the war. It will exercise leverage with dozens of the richest nations in the world, all of which will have an acute interest in keeping Iran happy. They will be unlikely to take Israel’s side in any conflict that it has with Tehran or with its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, because Iran will have the means to punish them if they do. Israel will emerge more isolated than it has been at any time in its history—and not least from its only reliable protector, the United States. When Trump turns his back on Israel, as he must do to implement this policy, MAGA will gladly follow. The bipartisan anti-Israel consensus in the United States will grow and harden.

Rather like a lawsuit, it’s always a bad idea to engage in an unnecessary war. It’s always more difficult, more expensive, and takes longer than the advocates ever imagine. And that’s when you win! One important lesson of military history is that many of the most painful military defeats have been suffered by the side that genuinely believed it couldn’t lose.

DISCUSS ON SG

Smells Like a False Flag

I kept seeing social media posts about how Iran had made a huge mistake by attacking a nuclear power plant in the UAE. Only there is no evidence that it was actually Iranian drones that targeted the plant:

The UAE said an unidentified drone struck the territory of its only nuclear power plant on Sunday amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East. According to the Emirati Defense Ministry, three drones entered the country “from the western border region.” While two UAVs were shot down, the third struck an electrical generator “outside the inner perimeter” of the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in the Al Dhafra region. No injuries or radioactive contamination were reported.

While the Emirati authorities stopped short of directly accusing Iran, the country’s Foreign Ministry condemned the “unprovoked terrorist attack,” saying it threatened national security and risked further escalation.

Saudi Arabia said it intercepted three drones on the same day after they entered its airspace from Iraq.

If Iran decides it wants to go after the UAE’s nuclear power plant, it’s not going to use just three drones when it has hypersonic missiles in its arsenal. This was almost certainly a false flag, and the most likely candidate for raising one is pretty obvious.

DISCUSS ON SG

Replacement Migration is Real

The US government has formally admitted the existence of what was once deemed “conspiracy theory” by the media, and rejected it.

  • The White House: Under President Trump, replacement migration will never be the standard. The United States objects to the Global Compact on Migration and UN efforts to facilitate replacement migration.
  • U.S. Department of State: Last week, the United States refused to participate in the UN’s review of the Global Compact on Migration. The United States objects to the Global Compact on Migration and UN efforts to facilitate replacement migration to the United States and our Western allies.

It’s good that the USA is finally rejecting Clown World’s attempt to subject the Christian West to invasion and its goal to repopulate the West with non-Western, non-Christian foreigners. But rejection replacement migration is no longer enough in light of decades of foreign invasion, remigration is now an absolute priority if America and the European nations are going to survive without resorting to Israeli levels of genocide.

Lest you object to that characterization of the Israeli actions in Gaza, consider how you would describe it if the USA subjected its foreign migrants to precisely the same treatment that the Israeli government has provided the people of Gaza: a proportional effort would require deporting 33 million migrants and killing 10.5 million of them.

Now, considering that the Israelis are already doing this without even being banned from Eurovision or suffering any other consequences, can we really doubt that other countries are, sooner or later, going to follow the Israeli example when they hold far greater claims to their own lands than the Israelis have ever had to Gaza?

DISCUSS ON SG

The Neocon’s Despair

Even one of the leading neocons and chief architects of the war in Ukraine doesn’t believe the US military can defeat Iran.

The risk calculus that forced Trump to back down a month ago still holds. Even if Trump were to carry out his threat to destroy Iran’s “civilization” through more bombing, Iran would still be able to launch many missiles and drones before its regime went down—assuming it did go down. Just a few successful strikes could cripple the region’s oil and gas infrastructure for years if not decades, throwing the world, and the United States, into a prolonged economic crisis. Even if Trump wanted to bomb Iran as part of an exit strategy—looking tough as a way of masking his retreat—he can’t do that without risking this catastrophe.

If this isn’t checkmate, it’s close. In recent days, Trump has reportedly asked the U.S. intelligence community to assess the consequences of simply declaring victory and walking away. You can’t blame him. Hoping for regime collapse is not much of a strategy, especially when the regime has already survived repeated military and economic pummeling. It could fall tomorrow, or six months from now, or not at all. Trump doesn’t have that much time to wait, as oil climbs toward $150 or even $200 a barrel, inflation rises, and global food and other commodity shortages kick in. He needs a faster resolution.
But any resolution other than America’s effective surrender holds enormous risks that Trump has not so far been willing to take. Those who glibly call on Trump to “finish the job” rarely acknowledge the costs.

Unless the U.S. is prepared to engage in a full-scale ground and naval war to remove the current Iranian regime, and then to occupy Iran until a new government can take hold; unless it is prepared to risk the loss of warships convoying tankers through a contested strait; unless it is prepared to accept the devastating long-term damage to the region’s productive capacities likely to result from Iranian retaliation—walking away now could seem like the least bad option. As a political matter, Trump may well feel he has a better chance of riding out defeat than of surviving a much larger, longer, and more expensive war that could still end in failure.

Defeat for the United States, therefore, is not only possible but likely…

The American defeat in the Gulf will have broader global ramifications as well. The whole world can see that just a few weeks of war with a second-rank power have reduced American weapons stocks to perilously low levels, with no quick remedy in sight. The questions this raises about America’s readiness for another major conflict may or may not prompt Xi Jinping to launch an attack on Taiwan, or Vladimir Putin to step up his aggression against Europe. But at the very least America’s allies in East Asia and Europe must wonder about American staying power in the event of future conflicts.

The global adjustment to a post-American world is accelerating. America’s once-dominant position in the Gulf is just the first of many casualties.

Considering how Robert Kagan has been a major advocate of US military action all around “the jungle” of the globe, this is a fascinating, if long overdue, recognition of the limits of US military power.

DISCUSS ON SG

Iran to Trump: Surrender

Iran’s National Security Spokesman Ebrahim Rezaei to President Trump: As of today, our restraint is over. Any aggression against our vessels will be met with a heavy and decisive Iranian response against American vessels and bases. The clock is ticking against the Americans’ interests; it is to their benefit not to act foolishly and sink themselves deeper into the quagmire they have fallen into. The best course is to surrender and concede concessions. You must get used to the new regional order.

President Trump’s response: I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called “Representatives.” I don’t like it – TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!

Apparently a comprehensive failure to achieve any of his war goals in a reasonable timeframe is only going to make him double-down. Which means the USA is not only losing this war, but may risk losing it in an even more costly and humiliating manner if the legislative branch doesn’t impeach him and remove him from office. If we’re lucky, he’s just blustering and will soon do the smart thing and accept the military realities of the untenable situation in which he has put himself and the US military.

The dangerous thing here is that to date, Iran has been fighting a predominantly reactive and defensive war. But now that they’ve survived the initial Zerg rushes, its strategists have the time to figure out how to go on the offensive, both in the theater and beyond.

DISCUSS ON SG

Israel Washes its Hands

The War of the Epstein Alliance can be safely regarded as lost now, as the Israelis are already trying to wash their hands of responsibility for the USA attacking Iran and defending Israel despite the war being observably against the interests of the American people.

US President Donald Trump made the decision to attack Iran after his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago in late December 2025, but the foundations for that decision had been laid long beforehand, and much of them had nothing to do with Israel or Netanyahu. Conversations with a long list of diplomatic and security officials, Israelis, Americans and diplomats from the region, reveal a clear picture: The man in the White House had a top-tier strategic goal, to topple or decisively weaken the regime in Iran.

Moreover, reports published, among others, in The New York Times and The Washington Post, claiming that Netanyahu had “dragged” Trump and the US into war, partly by arguing that the regime could be brought down, are plainly wrong. The conversations I held indicate that at least some senior Trump administration officials, and Trump himself, were the ones who assessed that the regime could be toppled, while the Israeli team presented a far more cautious assessment on this issue.

A note: Such reporting by the two newspapers mentioned above was not surprising. Both took an anti-war line, consistent with their unfavorable coverage of the Trump administration and Netanyahu’s policies. In this case, according to a US official, they were fed by sources in certain departments at the State Department and the War Department who dislike what they see as the overly close ties between Jerusalem and Washington, certainly when it comes to Middle East policy…

 The fall of the regime in Iran would greatly ease the disarming of Hezbollah and the dismantling of its status in Lebanon, leave Hamas and Islamic Jihad without financial backing, and most likely bring down the Houthi regime in Yemen as well. But even before the war, and especially now, it is clear that this is an overly ambitious goal, certainly in the short term. The current focus, on the one hand, is preventing an agreement that would allow the regime to recover militarily, certainly on the nuclear and missile issues. Without an agreement, Israel supports further intensification of sanctions and economic warfare against Iran until it is completely paralyzed, alongside readiness for the resumption of the war in the near term, this time with a focus on strategic targets such as power stations.

The pointing of the finger at Israel as the party that pushed the US into the strike is therefore only partially correct. In practice, this was a purely American decision, based on an understanding that the regime poses a threat to America and the entire West, and certainly to US interests in the Middle East. Israel assisted with precise intelligence, on the nuclear and missile programs, on Iranian attacks against American targets, and on what happened during and after the protests. The clear convergence of interests with the US is what brought about the joint war, even if its end remains unclear.

I find this version of events less interesting for its attempt at revising history and more useful for indicating that at least some of the parties responsible for the war are attempting to avoid being held culpable for it, which is a very reliable indicator that the war failed to accomplish their goals and is expected to be considered something that is worthy of blame rather than praise.

This, in turn, indicates that everyone involved in prosecuting it is going to be highly motivated to bring it to an end sooner rather than later. The last oil tankers have already delivered their loads. The economic bite of the failed war is only beginning to be felt, and the blame game hasn’t even truly begun yet. The political fallout from it will not be insignificant, as the massive turnover in UK politics very likely demonstrates.

UPDATE: Local National Guard HIMARS artillery unit deployed to ME for a year is home now – they literally fired off everything they could find, painted so many fire mission marks on their launchers that they’re no longer camouflage, and have now sent 90% of their people home. The 10% that remain are working on getting the broken-down launchers out of the desert and onto ships back to the US. This gives me confidence that the war is over by default, and we are out of ammunition.

DISCUSS ON SG

Iran Can Outlast the USA

Once more, the Douhetians are proven wrong about the strategic capabilities of airpower:

A confidential CIA analysis delivered to administration policymakers this week concludes that Iran can survive the U.S. naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship, four people familiar with the document said, a finding that appears to raise new questions about President Donald Trump’s optimism on ending the war.

The analysis by the U.S. intelligence community, whose secret assessments on Iran have often been more sober than the administration’s public statements, also found that Tehran retains significant ballistic missile capabilities despite weeks of intense U.S. and Israeli bombardment, three of the people familiar with it said.

Iran retains about 75 percent of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar stockpiles of missiles, a U.S. official said. The official said there is evidence that the regime has been able to recover and reopen almost all of its underground storage facilities, repair some damaged missiles and even assemble some new missiles that were nearly complete when the war began.

Airpower never accomplishes one-tenth of what its advocates say it will, because airpower never does even one-tenth the damage that the after-action assessors think it did. Desert Storm was the salient ultimate proof of this, as Col. Douglas Macgregor admitted that an Iraqi tank battalion that was bombed for 30 days in the desert was discovered after the war to have survived with 85 percent of its vehicles still operational.

The average US tank battalion couldn’t survive with 85 percent viability after thirty days of operation on the basis of its maintenance issues alone.

In case you haven’t noticed, despite their relative lack of air forces, both Hezbollah and the Ukrainian armed forces are still in the fight after years of war.

DISCUSS ON SG