Tag: war

Why the USA is Under Pressure

If the talking heads are to be believed, Iran is on the brink of surrender and Israel is all but unscathed. But the world press is skeptical and not even the Wall Street Journal is convinced.

Despite claiming major successes against Iran’s military infrastructure, Israel is rapidly depleting its supply of long-range missile interceptors, raising alarm over the sustainability of its defence systems, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a US official familiar with allied intelligence assessments.

The report came amid relentless missile exchanges between Israel and Iran. Since Israel launched Operation Rising Lion last Friday, Iranian forces have fired roughly 400 ballistic missiles — part of an estimated arsenal of 2,000 capable of reaching Israeli territory. Israeli defences, particularly the Arrow system designed to intercept high-altitude ballistic missiles, have managed to neutralise most incoming projectiles, but not without significant strain.

Officials in Tel Aviv told WSJ that one-third of Iran’s missile launchers have been destroyed and claim to have achieved air superiority over Iranian skies. Still, intelligence sources warned that over half of Iran’s missile inventory remains intact, with a portion likely concealed in underground facilities.

The cost of maintaining Israel’s layered missile defence — comprising the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, the Arrow system, and US-supplied Patriots and THAAD batteries — is becoming a critical concern. Israeli financial daily The Marker estimated that nightly missile defence operations are costing up to 1 billion shekels ($285 million). The Arrow system alone fires interceptors priced at $3 million each.

With Iranian missile barrages continuing almost daily, Israeli air defence stockpiles are now under severe pressure. Without rapid resupply from the United States or direct intervention, Israel can maintain its missile defence for 10 or 12 more days if Iran maintains a steady tempo of attacks, a source briefed on US and Israeli intelligence told WSJ. “The system is already overwhelmed. Soon, they may have to choose which missiles to intercept,” the source said.

That strain is beginning to show. On Friday night, Iranian missiles evaded Israel’s defences and struck near the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv. On Sunday, a direct hit forced the shutdown of a major oil refinery near Haifa. And on Tuesday morning, verified social media videos captured multiple Iranian missile impacts close to Israel’s intelligence compound north of Tel Aviv.

The truth is being obscured by both sides, which is why it’s foolish to try to make any determinations on the basis of the very censored information that is being released by the various military PR agencies. Given that the Israeli/US strategy is based on a combination of airpower and special ops, a combination that has never been particularly successful and has proven all but useless on the modern battlefield in Ukraine, I’m skeptical that it can be successful even if the USA does go in heavily as anticipated.

Also, Steve Bannon is wrong. MAGA will never get behind Trump’s Israel First policy.

Steve Bannon dramatically predicted that Donald Trump’s supporters will rally behind the president if he decides to blow up Iran’s mountain nuclear base.

It’s a massive flip from Trump’s former chief strategist who has in the past been adamantly opposed to strikes against Iran. Bannon said that the MAGA movement will stand by Trump – even if they might not be fully on board with the idea of the U.S. backing Israel ‘s attacks on Iran.

‘If President Trump decides there’s not a diplomatic alternative… because he’s been consistent, no nuclear weapon,’ Bannon said during a Christian Science Monitor event on Wednesday.

He continued: ‘The vast majority of the MAGA movement will say, ‘look, we trust your judgment, you walked us through this… Maybe we hate it but, you know, we’ll get on board.”

No foreign wars, period. We’re rapidly approaching what looks like the USA’s late imperial Sicilian Expedition.

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The War Drums Get Louder

The mainstream media is entirely convinced that President Trump is going to break his promises to the American people and go to war for the benefit of what would appear to be his Israeli masters:

U.S. officials have indicated that Iran has 24 to 48 hours to surrender and save itself from an American military onslaught as President Trump considers joining Israel’s war. White House officials said the next two days will be critical in determining whether Washington and Tehran can find a diplomatic solution to the burgeoning crisis in the Middle East.

Earlier yesterday Trump posted on Truth Social that he knew where Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei is hiding but would not launch a strike ‘yet’. He then added ‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER’!. Israeli officials have also cryptically promised a ‘surprise’ on Thursday night similar to its pager attack on Hezbollah leadership.

As Trump met with advisors in the White House Situation Room on Tuesday, insiders told ABC News that the President has grown frustrated by Iran’s manner of response since Israel began bombing on Friday.

The President will also not want the situation to develop to a point where it appears Iran has called his bluff, the outlet reports.

Why would Iran surrender unconditionally after a few days of light bombing when the Kiev regime hasn’t done so after three straight years of relentless defeat and destruction?

And why is the USA so blustering while Russia and China are almost entirely silent. Something doesn’t add up here.

For example, what if Russia adopts Israel’s strategy of war via assassination and applies it to the member states of the European Union? It could enact similar regime change in Germany, France, Poland, and the UK overnight.

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There is No “We”, Kemosabe

A lot of talk. We’ll see how much of it is real and how much of it is of the “Russia is out of ammunition and Putin died of cancer two weeks ago while the Ghost of Kiev was shooting down the entire Russian air force” soon enough.

It does seem strange that all that good ol’ American stuff would work so much better in the Middle East than it does in Eastern Europe or on the subcontinent.

Donald Trump was elected to put America first and keep the USA out of neocon wars. It doesn’t matter what he says or how he postures, no actual American is going to support war in the Middle East, Ukraine, or the South China Sea.

UPDATE: Clown World is really pulling out all the stops to get their world war.

Iran’s former President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, along with his wife and two sons, were assassinated by masked gunmen in central Tehran earlier today.

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Iran Has Nukes

Let me get this straight. Atomic/Nuclear weaponry has supposedly been around since 1945. It’s very old, very basic technology that has been acquired by countries as underdeveloped as India, Pakistan, South Africa, and Israel.

Hypersonic missiles are so technologically advanced and difficult to manufacture that only four countries in the world have deployed them: China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. The USA hasn’t successfully developed one yet, neither have Japan, France, or the UK.

And yet, we’re supposed to believe that Iran doesn’t already possess nuclear warheads to install on those hypersonic delivery systems?

I don’t buy it. If nuclear weaponry actually exists – and there is very good reason to doubt that it does – then Iran has it. If Iran doesn’t have it, then no one does because it doesn’t actually exist. The fact that nuclear weapons have been held over humanity’s collective heads for generations and used to justify globalist organizations for decades is sufficient reason for them to have been among the foremost myths perpetrated by Clown World.

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Remember Who Owns the Media

It’s important to keep in mind that the US media is relentlessly pro-Israel when you’re reading about how Israel has total air supremacy over Tehran and only two cats and an abandoned hut were destroyed by what few Iranian missiles managed to get through the impenetrable Iron Dome air defense system. I’m not saying that Israel is any more likely to wave the white flag than Iran is, only pointing out that while the recent exchanges have been more serious than the last round, in military terms, we’re still talking about what is little more than handbags at twenty paces.

Israel’s initial euphoria over its Friday morning strikes on Iranian targets is fading as Israeli inhabitants get a taste of their own medicine. Israel’s much touted Iron Dome is a total bust. I have posted a couple of videos below that show the Iranian missiles arriving unimpeded. In his latest video, BORZZIKMAN reports that the Iranian strike yesterday on the IDF version of the Pentagon destroyed a THAAD air defense system that was deployed to “protect” the building.

Pepe Escobar was interviewed earlier today by Nima and provided some important news from his impeccable Russian sources. Israel, with help from the West, hit Iran with a cyberattack early Friday morning Tehran time that disabled Iran’s air-defense system. Israel and the West anticipated this would disable Iran’s ability to track and attack inbound missiles for several days. According to Pepe, Iranian technicians got the system up and running in 10 hours.

The Potemkin Village propaganda generated by Israel and spread by Western media is coming apart at the seams. While many in the West still believe that Israel has struck a fatal blow on Iran and that Iran is just days away from a collapse, the Iranian missile force is alive and well and bombing the shit out of Israel. I suspect that Iran is employing Houthi tactics with their ballistic missiles that are fired from mobile launchers — i.e., instead of relying on fixed sites, Iran is deploying its missiles around the country on mobile launchers, which are virtually impossible to detect and destroy in a timely manner. As I write this, Iran reportedly has launched an eighth-wave of missiles. Iran is going to engage Israel in a tit-for-tat battle until Israel ceases its attacks on Iran.

That little tidbit about the cyberattack disabling Iran’s air defense makes sense, as I was wondering what Netanyahu meant when he was initially talking about the attacks going on for days. His statements make more sense in light of the expectation that Iran wouldn’t have any air defenses active for an extended period of time, and also explain how the initial attacks worked better than expected before petering out. It also explains why the Israelis have run so quickly to the US government in asking to be bailed out of a situation that pretty much every neutral analyst anticipated they would find themselves.

The whole concept of “inflict a few casualties and use them as a lever to effect regime change” is just prodigiously stupid. It’s the same strategy every single time, and while it used to work occasionally, it’s simply not a smart basis for going to war with a more powerful country. 200 fatalities is less than nothing to the Iranians, who lost more than one million dead in winning their war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

If this is genuinely the best the IDF can do, and I find it difficult to believe it is, then Israel is in more desperate straits than I’d imagined.

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A Reality Check

Col. Macgregor doesn’t buy into Netanyahu’s chest-thumping about the massive victory of the Battle of Tehran, and points out that if things were going as well as the Israelis have been proclaiming, they wouldn’t be crying about Tel Aviv coming in for a taste of the same medicine or pressuring everyone from Germany to the US military to get involved on their behalf.

In the last 72 hours, Israel launched a preemptive strike against Iran when negotiations between Washington and Tehran were still ongoing. Iran was caught off-guard. But Iran recovered more quickly from its Pearl Harbor moment than Israel expected. In less than 18 hours after Israel’s surprise attack, Iran responded firing hundreds of ballistic missiles including hypersonic missiles into central Tel Aviv and across Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Iron Dome failed. Israeli intelligence failed. Now Netanyahu is pleading with Washington to intervene with American Military Power to rescue Israel from certain defeat; a defeat Netanyahu crafted with encouragement from Washington.

At the same time, Russia, China, Pakistan and most of the Muslim World are rallying to Iran’s defense. Supplies, equipment and technical assistance are pouring into Iran.  

It’s time for a reality check:

Washington burned through $12 trillion in the Middle East since 2003. Result? 7,000 dead Americans. 50,000 wounded, open borders and 100,000 Americans dying yearly from Fentanyl poisoning. Today, the United States is $37 trillion in debt, a sum that does not include so-called “agency debt.”   77 million Americans voted for President Trump because he promised to end the overseas conflicts and halt the march to WW3.

The Middle East is on the brink. Here’s what Washington must do to defuse conflict:  

1. Ask for an Emergency UN Security Council meeting. Ask for an Immediate ceasefire making it clear that Washington opposes the destruction of Iran, Israel and any other state in the Middle East.  

2. Demand that Israel stop the killing of Palestinians in Gaza and withdraw its forces from Gaza and the West Bank.

3. Suspend all military aid to Israel until Israel agrees to remove its troops from Gaza and permit humanitarian assistance to reach the people of Gaza.

4. Propose the commitment of Armed Forces from non-aligned nations to police Gaza and the West Bank.

5. Propose that the United States, Russia, China, India and Brazil convene a peace conference to arbitrate the dispute between Israel, Iran and Israel’s neighbors.

Aside from not getting further involved in the Iran-Israel war, I totally disagree with Col. Macgregor’s recommendations and I don’t see what can be usefully expected from the UN or attempting to reason with the Israelis over Gaza. At best, this is belatedly attempting to put a Band-aid on a gushing artery.

The best thing President Trump can do for the Middle East is to stop all military aid to everyone, then tell both the Israelis and the Iranians to go ahead and fight it out amongst themselves if that’s what they want. If that means a few glass parking lots in the Middle East, so what? Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities now.

The optimal results are never achieved by putting off the inevitable. And if the USA is too weak to impose its will on the various parties now, things aren’t going to become any easier going forward. The one and only thing that absolutely must be avoided is going to war with Iran on Israel’s behalf, for as even the most ardent Christian Zionist must be able to understand, a collapsed USA can be of zero assistance to anyone.

Indeed, I suspect seeing the US military enmesh itself in a war with Iran is the one course of action that would absolutely delight the long-term thinkers in the Chinese strategy rooms. Because there is obviously a lot going on behind the scenes that isn’t being intentionally advertised.

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America or Israel First?

Simplicius believes the damage to the Iranian nuclear program from the Israeli attacks was insignificant, and that the real goal was what I and many other suspected, which was to trigger an Iranian response that hit hard enough to give AIPAC cause to run crying to President Trump about the need to invade those mean ol’ Nazis in Iran.

The plan all along was obviously to goad Iran into an overwhelming response that would somehow incite the US to enter the war on behalf of Israel, in order to finish off Iran. The nuclear program was likely a false target, the real objective being the total overthrow of Iran’s leadership and the fomenting of civilian uprisings throughout the country to bring Iran to heel under a Western puppet-led government.

Now Trump stands poised on the knife’s edge of one of his most historically critical decisions—whether to betray the mandate of the American people and consign his second term and dwindling legacy to the trash heap of history, or to pull back on the strings of Miriam Adelson and other donors and show a spine in standing up for the real ‘America First’ vision he promised to all. As of this writing, there are reports of urgent meetings in the Pentagon surrounding precisely the issue of Israel’s request for the US to officially enter the war to ‘finish off Iran’.

Yanis Varoufakis writes:

This is Trump’s Waterloo. He posed as the Leviathan who would bring a stealthy Peace, a smart Deal that averts a war with Iran. Then, with one more gross violation of international law, Netanyahu puts him in a little box: For either Trump knew of the attack, in which case he is no more than Netanyahu’s stooge. Or he didn’t know, which begs the question why he didn’t know and how will he react to being treated like a fool by Netanyahu. Either way, Trump’s strongman, dealmaking image is now toast. Either way, he goes down in history as yet another US President that Netanyahu bent to his genocidal will.

The entire non-Western world is now watching this pivotal turning point moment with bated breath: Trump can either make a move to redeem at least some lost hope for America’s global leadership, or instead pound the final nail in its coffin, forever edifying the rising Global South as to the true nature of the immoral, barbarous, and unprincipled West. It is a metaphysical crossroads: Trump will either stay true to his quasi-spiritual mission of world betterment, or he will drown the US in the blood of neocon imperialism… I have it as 70/30 chance that saner heads prevail in the US with Trump electing to not enter the war, but we’ll see how it develops.

At this point, I think it’s important to remember that there are multiple Trumps and it is intrinsically misleading to put too much stock in anything that is said by any of them, but most particularly by the short, fat one controlled by Clown World. All the competing word-spells are irrelevant, all that matters is the courses of action actually taken by the various parties.

Nor should we put too much stock in Israeli crocodile tears about missile strikes on Tel Aviv after the way the IDF has flattened civilian buildings from Gaza to Beirut and Tehran. It is both nonsensical and contemptible to declare “this is war” and hit another party, then whine when the other party hits back.

In war, the enemy always gets a vote. And if the US is foolish enough to get further involved, there is no reason to assume North Korea, Russia, and China won’t follow suit. China probably won’t, but I wouldn’t bet on North Korea and Russia staying out of it.

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Why Iran Won’t Strike Back

Simplicius believes that Iran will not retaliate by attacking Israel with anything more than symbolic gestures:

Israel is at a crossroads, which I have described before: the country is in a downward spiral and has only one remaining chance to seize history to secure its survival. Why? The reasons are almost too long to list in this one brief article alone, but they include demographics, as well as the decline of Zionism and rise of “noticing” in the West which means in a generation or two, support for Israel may dwindle to the point where it will be engulfed by regional enemies.

The other major reason: nascent technologies have created parity between Israel and its foes, where groups like Hamas and Hezbollah can use cheap but highly technologically effective weapons to deal accurate, disabling damage to Israel’s most critical and sensitive infrastructure. The same goes for Iran: the country has come of age and mastered rocketry and newfangled drone warfare to the point where the numbers simply do not work in Israel’s favor in any future war.

Israel once had the backing of the world’s most dominant ‘superpower’ alliance of Western nations, now the tides of history have simply shifted against Israel’s favor.

Now there are reports Iran may “declare war” on Israel. I remain skeptical for the following reason: Iran has no true overriding capability to fully ‘submit’ Israel into a state of debellatio. Israel has the nukes, and presumably, Iran as of yet does not. No amount of conventional missiles could make Israel simply surrender, and as such a declaration of war has no real meaning. Neither do the two countries share a border so it’s not like Iranian troops can somehow flood Israel to capture its capital.

Any overwhelming attack that could critically wound Israel may provoke an Israeli nuclear response—further proving Iran does not have the escalatory advantage or trump card. That is like Ukraine “declaring war” on Russia—what possible meaning would that have? Ukraine does not have the escalatory dominance to ever ‘submit’ Russia in any way, and the only objective of true ‘war’ is just that—total victory and the subjugation of the adversary. Thus, I see no logical way war can be declared, unless Iran did finally secretly hatch that bomb and is ready to use it. The only other possibility is for PR reasons to satisfy the demands of the angry populace, before declaring victory after some arbitrary objectives have been carried out via a series of strikes, and calling it a day.

I think his analysis is perspicacious. The attack on Iran is far from devastating, and the loss of a few Boomers in charge is hardly debilitating or even necessarily unwelcome to their younger successors. There were not Israeli jets flying over Tehran as if it were Lebanon; the attack mostly consisted of missiles launched from well outside Iranian airspace combined with a secret drone attack from within Iran that suspiciously resembles the recent attack by the Kiev regime on Russian airfields.

And, as Simplicius pointed out, at present, Iran’s ability to defeat Israel is nearly as impossible as Israel’s ability to defeat Iran.

But as with China vis-a-vis the USA and Russia vis-a-vis NATO, time is on Iran’s side. Israel didn’t attack Iran yesterday out of a position of strength, but rather, weakness and desperation. It attacked Iran while it still can, while it still has enough of a technological and operational advantage to do so.

Therefore, it would probably be wise for Iran to settle for a few symbolic missile and drone launches before following the lead of its Chinese and Russian partners in simply waiting for the US support that sustains Israel to collapse, as it is already in the process of doing.

Of course, the fact that this makes long-term strategic sense doesn’t mean that events will proceed accordingly. But given the restraint shown by Iran on previous occasions, I think Simplicius is correct to anticipate that similar restraint will be shown here.

An analysis of the effectiveness of the Israeli strike, which makes it sound as if the initial reports were highly exaggerated, and therefore makes it even more likely that any Iranian response will be symbolic.

An Israeli attempt to decapitate the Iranian military leadership also appears to have largely failed, with only one reasonably confirmed senior casualty at this time – GEN Salami, commander of the IRGC since 2019. I’ve seen a report that he was quite ill and thus remained in his home unlike the rest of the Iranian senior leadership. Recall that Khamenei was taken to a secure location some time ago, so it’s not like the Iranians didn’t have warning or were complacent about getting into shelter. Two or three people connected to the Iranian nuclear program also seem to have been assassinated, but in real terms this isn’t going to affect a program that is already largely – if not entirely – complete.

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Israel Attacks Iran

“Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense. President Trump and the Administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces and remain in close contact with our regional partners. Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.” – Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State

Since Hal Turner was spot-on about this one, I’ll quote him on the breaking news.

  • Multiple reports from several countries are saying “hundreds” of fighter jets and drones are in the air over differing parts of Iraq, heading into Iran to attack – right now: 8:13 PM EDT 12-June-2025
  • Massive explosions reported all over Tehran. Israel may be going for a leadership decapitation strike.
  • Netanyahu’s motorcade has entered the Mossad command bunker.
  • Israeli army radio (GLZ) confirms IAF strikes targeting Iran
  • Initial reports of explosions at Natanz and Fordow in Iran. These are the main nuclear facilities.
  • Doron Kaddish (IDF Radio): Senior officials tell me that Israel is preparing for multiple days of combat with Iran.
  • Operation Name: Nation of Lions

However, Larry Johnson reported prior to the attack that the US would be directly involved in it.

Donald Trump apparently has decided to attack Iran. Mark this date. It is the beginning of the end of the Trump Presidency. Trump has been persuaded that the Iranian air defense is weak and that a US bombing run will eliminate any chance that Iran can build a nuclear device. He has been a victim of lies. He will shortly discover, if these attacks take place, that Iran retains a significant capability to shoot down US aircraft. In fact, I fully expect Iran will capture and put on display several US air force officers in the next week.

Simplicius is dubious that Israel or the USA can even reach the nuclear sites that Israel is seeking to destroy: In short, Iran’s underground nuclear infrastructure is now too deep, too complex, and too protected to be taken out militarily.

My take is that Israel is going it alone with the expectation that if Iran hammers them hard enough and looks like it is winning, AIPAC will be able to exert enough pressure on President Trump to force the US military to intervene and rescue them from the consequences of their own actions.

UPDATE: It appears that Israel was successful with its targeted assassinations and that Secretary of State Rubio lied because the USA was definitely involved. It also appears that Iran is likely to declare war on Israel and be supported by North Korea, Russia, and presumably, China.

  •  Iran is beginning to report the names of the senior officials who have been killed so far: 
    • Salami Hussein – Chief of Staff of the IRGC
    • Sardar Rashid – Very Senior Commander in the IRGC.
    • Dr. Feridon Abbas – Senior Nuclear Scientist.
    • Dr. Tehranchi – Senior Nuclear Scientist.
    • Gholam-Ali Rashid, commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya organization
  • Mossad head Dadi Barnea and Minister Ron Dermer did not fly to Washington. The briefing by an Israeli official as if they were supposed to meet Steve Witkoff before the sixth round of talks was part of the deception.  
  • North Korea will provide military support to Iran.
  • “CENTCOM is on high alert, the US will defend itself and Israel if Iran retaliates,” Trump said, according to Fox News.

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NATO is Dead

No one is willing to die to defend modern Europe, especially in the aftermath of the mass invasion by the Third World:

Ukraine’s former foreign minister has starkly warned that British mothers must accept their sons have to die defending Europe, otherwise there is no Nato. Dmytro Kuleba told Metro that Vladimir Putin’s goal was to ‘expose’ the ‘falsehood’ of the Nato alliance, which has a mutual assistance clause that compels its members to fight for each other in the event of an attack of another member.

He said: ‘Putin may invade Nato territory soon – so now what? Is Nato going to send a division to fight back? ‘Many people believe that the real test for Nato is whether the US is going to fight for Europe. The real test will be whether British mothers will actually accept that their sons have to die for Finland or Estonia or Poland. If they don’t, there is no Nato.’

The chilling warning comes after Germany’s spy chief warned that Putin is plotting to attack a Nato territory to test the bloc’s mutual assistance clause.

I doubt there is a single British mother who is willing to accept that her son has to die to defend Finland, Estonia, or Poland. Certainly no American mothers are. The time to defend Europe was when Germany first started importing Gastarbeitern from Turkey. Why would anyone die to defend Europe from Russians when they weren’t even allowed to protest the invasion by Africans and Arabs?

If that is the metric, NATO is already dead.

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