Tag: war

China and the “Ceasefire”

Pepe Escobar says China is behind the Pakistani negotiations and Iran is dictating terms because the USA can no longer defend either the Gulf State or Israel:

There’s absolutely no way that Pakistan could have offered “guarantees” to Iran that a ceasefire was the way for the war to eventually end. As confirmed by diplomatic sources, what really happened is that Beijing, at the 11th moment, placed itself as the guarantor, assuring Tehran that the US would accept at least some of Iran’s demands included in its 10-point plan.

That was further confirmed by Iranian ambassador to China, Abdolreza Rhamani Fazili. The negotiations start this Friday in Islamabad.

POTUS, the Drooling Baboon of Barbaria, confronted with the inevitable, dire consequences of his own strategic blunder, used Pakistan for his off-ramp. That was confirmed by another epic blunder by the Pakistani Prime Minister himself: he forgot to remove the header of the tweet/X post drafted by the White House for him to publish.

The current Pakistani regime – de facto led by Field Marshall Asim Munir, who has Trump on speed dial – may have profited, and will continue to geopolitically profit, from a unique status: a Muslim nuclear nation with a significant Shi’ite minority; good relations with the GCC; neighbor of Iran, enjoying good relations; signed a defense pact with Saudi Arabia; a strategic partner of China; no US bases on its soil.

But Islamabad was always a mere go-between, never the architect of any “mediation”. Whatever obfuscation coming from the White House, it was China that had to clinch the lineaments of a possible détente.

The Epstein Syndicate begs for a break

We had arrived to a point where the death cult in West Asia was being crushed simultaneously by Iran and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon; no matter the avalanche of spin, their cries begging for help played a significant part into Trump’s pivoting to a ceasefire.

The Epstein Syndicate as a whole begged for it. Nothing to do with geopolitics, but with operational hell: the Empire of Chaos has run out of military resources.

The ultimate give away was when the USS Tripoli retreated – under fire – to the depths of the southern Indian Ocean, complete with its 2,500 Marines on board. That meant the US Navy out of the war theater – except for subs with Tomahawks, roughly half of which go off-target with staggering (non)precision.

War isn’t always about offense. That’s something that aggressors throughout history have failed to understand. They spend all of their time thinking about what they can do to the enemy and none of it thinking about what the enemy can do to them.

Israel was correct about time running out on their influence over the US military. They were incorrect about what they thought the US military could accomplish on their behalf. In some ways, this end of empire scenario playing out in an area of little to no national interest is actually a good thing for Americans, because nothing of value will be lost in the defeat.

There is no value in the false belief of unstoppable imperial power. Better than the balloon be punctured in the Middle East with a third-rate power than in direct conflict with either Russia or China.

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A Misunderstanding

JD Vance: “I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t. We never made that promise, we never indicated that was gonna be the case.”

No problem. The US and Iran can maintain their ceasefire, and Israel can fight Hezbollah and Iran by itself.

This is not an issue for the United States.

Why Trump Wants Out

Everyone who knew anything about military affairs knew that there was no strategic path to victory in Iran before the recent debacle even started:

In the Situation Room on Feb. 11, Mr. Netanyahu made a hard sell, suggesting that Iran was ripe for regime change and expressing the belief that a joint U.S.-Israeli mission could finally bring an end to the Islamic Republic.

At one point, the Israelis played for Mr. Trump a brief video that included a montage of potential new leaders who could take over the country if the hard-line government fell. Among those featured was Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, now a Washington-based dissident who had tried to position himself as a secular leader who could shepherd Iran toward a post-theocratic government.

Mr. Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to near-certain victory:

Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal.

Mr. Netanyahu delivered his presentation in a confident monotone. It seemed to land well with the most important person in the room, the American president.

Sounds good to me, Mr. Trump told the prime minister. To Mr. Netanyahu, this signaled a likely green light for a joint U.S.-Israeli operation.

Mr. Netanyahu’s presentations — and Mr. Trump’s positive response to them — created an urgent task for the U.S. intelligence community. Overnight, analysts worked to assess the viability of what the Israeli team had told the president.

The results of the U.S. intelligence analysis were shared the following day, Feb. 12, in another meeting for only American officials in the Situation Room. Before Mr. Trump arrived, two senior intelligence officials briefed the president’s inner circle.

The intelligence officials had deep expertise in U.S. military capabilities, and they knew the Iranian system and its players inside out.

The U.S. officials assessed that the first two objectives were achievable with American intelligence and military power. They assessed that the third and fourth parts of Mr. Netanyahu’s pitch, which included the possibility of the Kurds mounting a ground invasion of Iran, were detached from reality.

When Mr. Trump joined the meeting, Mr. Ratcliffe briefed him on the assessment. The C.I.A. director used one word to describe the Israeli prime minister’s regime change scenarios: “farcical”.

At that point, Mr. Rubio cut in. “In other words, it’s bullshit”, he said.

Mr. Ratcliffe added that given the unpredictability of events in any conflict, regime change could happen, but it should not be considered an achievable objective.

Several others jumped in, including Mr. Vance, just back from Azerbaijan, who also expressed strong skepticism about the prospect of regime change.

The president then turned to General Caine. “General, what do you think?”

General Caine replied: “Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling”.

As the small team of advisers who were looped into the plans deliberated over the following days, General Caine shared with Mr. Trump and others the alarming military assessment that a major campaign against Iran would drastically deplete stockpiles of American weaponry, including missile interceptors, whose supply had been strained after years of support for Ukraine and Israel. General Caine saw no clear path to quickly replenishing these stockpiles.

He also flagged the enormous difficulty of securing the Strait of Hormuz and the risks of Iran blocking it. Mr. Trump had dismissed that possibility on the assumption that the regime would capitulate before it came to that. The president appeared to think it would be a very quick war — an impression that had been reinforced by the tepid response to the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.

In other words, the Trump administration had to relearn the lesson that one can’t believe anything the Israelis say the hard way, which the old officials of the British Mandate could have told them before 1948.

Nations always pursue their own interests, more often at the cost of their allies than of their enemies. But for some reason, people in power are very prone to forgetting that, particularly when they’ve been indoctrinated in the idea that nationhood is merely paperwork.

Anyhow, the fact that the blame game is already front-and-center in The New York Times is a healthy sign that US involvement in the war is over, regardless of what the Israelis and the Iranians do. The neocons will be doing everything they can to get the USA back in the war, but at this point, even the most gullible Christian Zionist has to realize that no amount of IDF-huffing is going to alter the geography or the missile stockpiles.

“I think we need to do it,” the president told the room. He said they had to make sure Iran could not have a nuclear weapon, and they had to ensure that Iran could not just shoot missiles at Israel or throughout the region.

Which only underlines what a complete failure their undeclared, unconstitutional war turned out to be.

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Declaring Victory

Despite all of the claims of TACO and so forth, declaring victory and retreating from the Middle East would be the best possible outcome for the United States.

The Iranian regime wants to pocket $1million for each ship that passes through the reopened Strait of Hormuz for two weeks, while the US and Iran negotiate a peace deal, regional officials have claimed.

President Donald Trump announced last night that Iran has agreed to a two-week ceasefire and will reopen the crucial waterway, while a ten-point peace plan is considered by both sides.

The exact terms of the deal have not been revealed. Trump told Sky News this morning: ‘They are very good points – and most of them have been fully negotiated. If it isn’t good, we’ll go right back to it very easily.’

However, earlier, an unnamed regional official told the Associated Press that Iran wants to charge tolls of up to $1million on ships that pass through the Strait during the two-week period.

The ten-point plan also says that the US should accept Tehran’s continued control over the Strait, recognise its right to uranium enrichment, lift all sanctions, pay compensation, and withdraw all troops from the region.

Iran would then use the money it raises for reconstruction following the weeks-long conflict.

On Tuesday, Trump described the deal as ‘total and complete victory.’

IRAN’S 10-POINT PEACE PLAN

  1. Commitment to non-aggression
  2. Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz
  3. Acceptance of Iran’s uranium enrichment
  4. Lifting of all primary sanctions
  5. Lifting of all secondary sanctions
  6. Termination of all UN Security Council resolutions
  7. Termination of all Board of Governors resolutions
  8. Paying compensation to Iran
  9. Withdrawal of US combat forces from the region
  10. Cessation of war on all fronts, including in Lebanon

Is it a victory? Of course not, in the strategic sense. The war with Iran was unwinnable, just as was the case with Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Iraq. But it was objectively a comprehensive military victory on the battlefield for US forces, which has rather usefully served to point out the limitations of military power to the rabid Zionist imperialists who now have a much better grasp of the fact that their influence over the US government and its military guarantees them nothing in the Middle East or elsewhere, even if they haven’t accepted it.

Mark Levin is currently on air with shaking and crying over the ceasefire with Iran: “The people of Iran!! Are we going to just leave them there? There’s nothing we can do, and we’re going to wash our hands over that? That to me is morally very difficult to accept!”

Yes. Levin should be relieved, because if the USA was the Middle East morality police, invading Israel, ending the genocide, and liberating Gaza on behalf of the Palestinians would be its top priority, followed by ejecting the IDF from southern Lebanon. Leaving the Middle East to its own devices would be a real victory for the American people, who have sufficient challenges of their own inside their own borders to resolve. So let’s hope the ceasefire between the USA and Iran holds, even if the one between Israel and Iran almost certainly won’t. This two-week ceasefire is a good sign, but it definitely doesn’t mean the war is over and AIPAC will be working overtime to try to overturn it.

According to Iranian officials, Pakistan has conveyed that the U.S. has accepted these principles as a basis for negotiations despite its public posture. Based on this, Iran agreed to a two-week negotiation period in Islamabad. It is emphasized that this does not mean the war has ended, and Iran will only accept a full end to the conflict once all terms of its proposal are finalized.

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US Military Revolt

A retired US Army general, Mark Hertling, confirms military commanders are actively preparing to defy Donald Trump. They are bound by the Constitution to disobey unlawful orders to bomb Iranian civilians. A military revolt is brewing.

I suspect the various military intelligence services know perfectly well that the individual playing the role of “Donald Trump” is not their actual commander-in-chief. Any orders he gives them are no more legitimate than the executive orders signed by the autopen of “Joe Biden” or the demands of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Remember, everything – EVERYTHING – about Clown World is fake and gay. Nothing they present is real. It’s all a performance by theater kids.

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No Deals

Iran appears to have learned its lesson. You can’t negotiate with either Israel or the United States. Both states are agreement-incapable.

Pakistan brokered an emergency ceasefire framework overnight — the “Islamabad Accord”

Pakistan’s Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir was in contact ALL NIGHT with both sides

The deal had two phases: immediate ceasefire + Hormuz reopens, then a comprehensive peace deal in 15-20 days

Both Washington and Tehran received the proposal

Iran’s response this morning: REJECTED

A senior Iranian official told Reuters: “Tehran will NOT reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a temporary ceasefire”

Iran added: “The United States lacks readiness for a permanent ceasefire”

Then the IRGC released a statement that should terrify every person on Earth:

“The Strait of Hormuz will NEVER return to its former state, especially for America and Israel”

“NEVER.” That is the word they used. NEVER.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf: “The entire Middle East will burn”

Now look at the diplomacy scorecard:

❌ 10-day ultimatum — Iran said no

❌ 48-hour deadline — Iran said no

❌ Turkey mediation — failed, no progress (WSJ)

❌ Egypt mediation — failed, no progress (WSJ)

❌ Pakistan “Islamabad Accord” — rejected this morning

Every single path to a deal is now DEAD.

There are no good guys here. But resistance to Clown World, global satanry, and military aggression is always necessary, whether you’re a good guy or not.

This isn’t going to be easy or fun for anyone except perhaps military contractors. The very best outcome would be if the USA would withdraw from the Middle East, stop funding any foreign states, and let Iran and Israel fight to the death of one or the other nation.

Not our dogs, not our hunt, not our concern. It’s rather remarkable to observe that the Christian Zionists have so little faith in their false god that they think the USA has to do his job for him.

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It Wasn’t a “Rescue Mission”

The crowing over losing multiple planes and helicopters in what purports to be a successful mission because all of the planes and helicopters were destroyed by US forces on the ground instead of Iranian forces struck me as more than stupid spin, it sounded like the “hurr-durr” meme applied to war.

“Jokes on you! I WANTED to blow up my own planes!”

So it’s not a surprise to learn that the rescue was actually cover for a failed attempt to seize Iran’s processed uranium.

The official story claims the HC-130s got stuck in “mud” after landing, and had to be destroyed on the ground along with several helicopters, though this was later updated to a “mechanical failure” despite bullet holes being found on the wings and fuselage of the wreckage.

But buckle up, because here’s where the story begins falling apart.

The original F-15E that was shot down was said to have gone down in ‘southwestern Iran’ with geolocations showing roughly 30.787710, 50.701440, which is about ~80km from the Iranian coastline: You can see even major outlets reported the crash to have happened in southwestern Khuzestan province:

To the best of my ability I’ve traced the original geolocation to this post which shows US Pave Hawk Combat Search and Rescue choppers flying over the area presumed to be the original F-15E crash site. But here’s the plot twist: the new footage of destroyed American C-130 transport craft and helicopters has been geolocated to over 200km away at this geolocation: 32.258394, 51.901927.

The geolocated wreckage of the C-130s which were apparently using a local “agricultural airstrip” (32.223369, 51.897678) just happens to be right over a mountain, about 35km away, from Isfahan’s nuclear facility, where Iran’s ‘near-weapons grade’ enriched uranium is alleged to be stored:

You can confirm via the above link in the quote that they are referring to the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center at the center of the discussion. There is apparently an underground complex at the connected “missile complex”, whose southern entrance is here: 32.585522° N, 51.814933° E.

This puts the failed US clandestine operation 35km southeast of one of Iran’s main uranium sites.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a lot more US casualties than we’ve been told as well.

UPDATE: Larry Johnson has an interesting spin on the story:

The shoot down of the F-15E was not a ruse to disguise a planned Special Ops raid on the nuclear site in Isfahan. It was an unlucky event for the pilot and the WSO. Given the rank of the WSO — and the highly classified knowledge he has about US operations in the Gulf and in Iran — recovering him became a top priority. The urgency of the situation resulted in the JSOC unit (I’m assuming they are based in Kuwait) being alerted to join the CSAR effort. The two C-130Js probably were already loaded with two AH-6 Little Birds. I think it was pure serendipity that the missing WSO was located northwest of the rudimentary air strip that the JSOC unit had been planning to use to stage its raid on Isfahan. Their familiarity with the area, based on their prior planning for the Isfahan raid, resulted in them being tasked to recover the WSO in lieu of the designated CSAR unit.

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Desperation and No Deal

The Fake Trump thinks he sounds strong and commanding, but not being an Alpha, he just sounds desperate.

The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again — Much more to follow! IT IS TIME FOR IRAN TO MAKE A DEAL BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, AND THERE IS NOTHING LEFT OF WHAT STILL COULD BECOME A GREAT COUNTRY!

President DONALD J. TRUMP

This is just nonsense. First, Iran doesn’t want to make a deal. They know they’re winning. They are an ancient culture that has survived far worse than this and they don’t care in the slightest if they lose a few 80-year-old leaders, something the aging octogenarians of the US government can’t possibly understand.

Second, even if they did want to make a deal, who would want to try talking to the USA or Israel? They’ve assassinated everyone who would normally do the talking. So there is a) no one to talk and b) nothing to talk about.

If I were one of Iran’s strategists, I wouldn’t talk, discuss any ceasefires, or even demand any surrenders. I’d simply keep up the constant, steady pressure until the empire collapses, which it absolutely will within months. I suspect the Iranians may actually be expanding the scope of their objectives from breaking the regional power of Israel by forcing the US military out of the region to bringing down the US global empire.

And if they have actually established a viable military supply pipeline from China and North Korea, they very likely have the ability to do it.

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North Korean Missiles in Iran

  • June 16, 2025: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stated, “We will provide support if Iran needs it,” while the Israel-Iran war continues. Following this statement, claims emerged that North Korea could send its strategic weapon, the Hwasong-16B missile, to Iran. As the Israel-Iran war becomes a crisis closely monitored by the entire world, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has openly supported the Tehran administration. Kim indicated a new geopolitical balance with his statement, “We will provide the necessary support if Iran needs it.” Following Kim’s remarks, all eyes turned to the Hwasong-16B missile, which North Korea describes as a “symbol of absolute superiority.” In recent months, Kim Jong Un personally supervised the test launch of the missile, which he had defined as “the pinnacle of defense technology.”
  • April 2, 2026: multiple reports that North Korea has delivered 500 Hwasong-18 missiles to the IRGC.

This isn’t confirmed yet, but we’ll know if one of them is used. And given how the US, the UK, and the EU have been supplying Ukraine, they can hardly complain that China, North Korea, and Russia are supplying weapons and satellite intelligence to Iran, which has been their ally for a long time.

In the meantime, Iran’s missile launchers continue to undestroy themselves. Six weeks in, what was 90 percent destroyed in the first 48 hours is now only 50 percent destroyed.

Around half of Iran’s missile launchers and kamikaze drones remain intact despite a month of US-Israeli strikes, CNN reports, citing a military intelligence assessment.

This isn’t a surprise to anyone who knows military history. The utility of air power has been wildly exaggerated by its advocates since Giulio Douhet and those exaggerations have been exposed in every military conflict from WWII to Desert Storm.

The overwrought threats of Donald Trump to Iran’s civilian infrastructure may be in response to Iran’s reported destruction of a significant part of the Israeli air force. If it’s true that a 300-missile barrage took out 40 planes on the ground yesterday, this will change the situation in the Middle East considerably in that Israel will no longer be able to hit back against Iran by itself.

Could these reports, which appear to be Chinese-generated, be fake? Absolutely. Are they unreliable? Definitely. And yet, they are less likely to be fake than the relentless US and Israeli insistence that a) all of Iran’s offensive capabilities were destroyed five weeks ago and b) none of Iran’s attacks have accomplished anything more than scratch the paint on a minor Israeli government official’s car.

It’s fascinating how Iranian missiles never hit anything, but so many targets keep getting “damaged by falling debris”.

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Refinements

Apparently the damage being inflicted on Iran needs to be a little readjusted in retrospect:

The “destruction of Iran’s capability” has been revised downward from 90% in week 1 to 82% in week 2 to 70% in week 3, shedding 10 percentage points per briefing cycle with the consistency of a subscription service. At current trajectory, Iran reaches full strength by May. We appear to be un-destroying things. JINSA’s own analyst cheered on March 5 that “Iran’s missile firepower has almost run out”. Three weeks later his own think tank published a report documenting the opposite. Iran is apparently getting un-bombed too.

Rubio then helpfully clarified the war’s “clear objectives” via the State Department’s official account. Four items: air force, navy, missiles, factories. Notably absent: uranium, nuclear weapons, regime change, and opening Hormuz – the four items the war was launched to achieve.

The timeline underwent a similar refinement: “two or three days” on February 28, “four weeks” on March 1, “four to six, maybe eight weeks” from Hegseth on March 4, Pentagon internally planning through September, and then silence.

I had no idea that the end of empire would prove so… comical?

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