Section 219 of the National Defence Authorisation bill, would merge the Israeli military into the US military. An amendment to prevent this was not even allowed a vote in the House of Representatives. This would be formal acknowledgement of the fusion between the two governments that has become increasingly obvious, but is at odds with the opinion of a majority of the American people. When Netanyahu has visited the US, he typically receives multiple standing ovations, despite the stream of televised war crimes his government has ordered. Any criticism of these actions is met with cries of anti-semitism, and such criticism is actually becoming illegal. Israel is the one country not allowed to be challenged over its behaviour, at a time when robust denunciation is highly appropriate. Meanwhile the American public is increasingly horrified by Israel’s actions. So are the populations of other western countries, althought their governments, like the US, are still in thrall to Israel despite its barbarism. Perhaps besides having bribed many western government officials the Israelis may also have kompromat on at least some of them, as this is known to have been one of their strategies, conducted by Jeffrey Epstein.

Israel currently receives billions in monetary aid, plus billions more in weaponry. Life on a kibbutz is subsidied by American taxpayers, so is Israeli free healthcare, and IDF soldiers receive the same benefits as American veterans. American citizens would love to have access to the benefits their own government showers on Israeli citizens. Israel has been an outpost the the Anglo-American empire since its inception, but this bill is the first attempt to merge the outpost formally into the centre of empire. Israel would then have access to far more funding, and intelligence, all with no oversight at all, despite the fact that Israeli and American priorities do not necessarily align. Take for instance the case of Jonathan Pollard, who stole nuclear secrets for Israel and also sold them to America’s adversaries. His is the worst case of damaging espionage in US history. He was jailed, but pardoned by Trump and allowed to return to Israel, where he was warmly welcomed by America’s zionist ambassador to Israel and is now running for a seat in the Knesset.

The bill as proposed is unconstitutional, not that the current American regime cares at all about either the law or the constitution. It would bind the imperial centre ever more tightly to its rabid attack dog in the Middle East, rightly associating the US with the litany of Israeli war crimes in the minds of the rest of the world. The empire has dropped the mask it’s worn for so long, and no longer pretends to care about niceties such as democracy or human rights. Now it indulges in naked power and resource grabs, even as its power wains internationally. The rest of the world has grown very tired of American bullying and extortion, and of the weaponisation of the reserve currency and of the international financial architecture. Alternative financial arrangements are being developed, along with alternative trade routes. Empires in decline never go quietly. It’s entirely possible that either the US or Israel, when out of other options, will eventually resort to using nuclear weapons. The rest of us can only hope that sanity will prevail.

Mass formation is a form of social psychosis. Its nature has been covered here in depth before. The factors making a society vulnerable to mass formation are social atomisation, a loss of meaning in life, free floating anxiety and free floating aggression. Free floating refers to anxiety or aggression not focused on anything specific. When a crisis (either natural or manufactured) comes along, the free floating anxiety develops a strong focus on a specific perceived threat. When a ‘solution’ is offered, which may well be a trap rather than a true solution, people become fanatically focused upon it, to the exclusion of all else. It’s as if they were collectively hypnotised. They can no longer see evidence against their chosen ‘solution’, no matter how obvious it may be to those not caught up in the mass formation. The become radically intolerant of anyone who opposes the implementation of the ‘solution’, and if the mass formation leads to its logical conclusion, it will end in atrocities. Social psychosis is an emotional state, and as such is highly contagious. Humans, like other mammals, internalise, express, and act upon the emotions they perceive around them. It can be difficult, and increasingly dangerous, to be a dissident, but dissidents speaking out in opposition is the only means of weakening the hypnosis sufficiently to orevent the mass formation reaching its violent final form.

This is exactly what’s happening in Israel today, and has reached its logical conclusion as the country is committing constant atrocities in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. The dead since October 7th number in the hundreds of thousands, with many unaccounted for as they’re buried under the rubble of their former homes. Israelis celebrate their war crimes. There are school trips to the edge of Gaza so the students can watch the bombing. A new death penalty law has been passed, only applicable to Palestinians. Government ministers refer to the Palestinians, and their other neighbours, as Amalek, which is a religious reference to a tribe that was ordered to be slaughtered in its entirety. The country has come to collectively believe that it’s their moral duty to kill all their enemies, even children and babies, because they would otherwise grow up to be Arabs, and they consider all Arabs to be terrorists. The whole country is in the grip of mob mentality and bloodlust. It’s becoming more religious, but of the fire and brimstone kind.

Israelis have always felt threatened by their neighbours, and sought to increase their own security at the expense of neighbouring states. October 7th, which it is increasingly clear was allowed to happen, cemented this fear very strongly. It unified a previously divided country behind a desire to exterminate the Palestinians and ‘ethnically clease’ the Arab populations between the Nile and the Euphrates in order to create Greater Israel. Israel is now at war with/in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen, and it describes Turkey and Pakistan as further targets. It regards other ethnicities and adherents to other religions as subhuman – lacking a full soul. Government ministers have proclaimed that international law doesn’t apply to the ‘chosen people’.

Israel has a population of under nine million, of who less than seven million are Jewish, and that number is decreasing as people emigrate. The surrounding region has a population of about a hundred and ninety million. Only people in the grip of a mass formation could fail to realise that they lack the capacity to take on all their neighbours at once, even with the backing of the US. It should have been obvious from the beginning that war with Iran would be futile and unwinnable, as the country is a natural fortress armed to the teeth after forty years of preparation. However, no reason or logic or evidence can penetrate minds in the grip of a mass formation. Having failed to be on the winning side in the war, Israel is now determined to derail any attempt at peace in whatever way necessary. Expect targeted assassinations, false flag attacks, terrorism, dirty tactics like the pager bombings etc. The country is at risk of disintegration due to economic collapse and widespread demoralisation, especially amongst young IDF soldiers who now have PTSD. The IDF is aware of its own limitations, but political considerations (namely Netanyahu’s desire to stay out of jail) dictate that there are no limits, and that total destruction if enemies is an imperative no matter the cost. For a nuclear power to be so deep in the grip of a mass formation is extremely dangerous. Combine that with a US – another nuclear power – in political turmoil, and run by a group of incompentent fools with plenty of hubris but no strategy, and the risk is very high. Beware of narratives pushed by warmongers for their own purposes.

Russia has been very restrained in its approach to the war in Ukraine. It has not responded in kind to the endless provocations undertaken by NATO in its proxy war intended to be fought to the last Ukrainian. As a result, the NATO countries have become increasingly emboldened and have continually escalated. They no longer seem to fear that Russia will ever react, especially beyond Ukraine to its suppliers of weaponry and intelligence. However, Russian patience appears to be wearing out. Last year the was an attack on Puntin’s residence, there have been several high profile assassinations, and this year a deliberate drone attack on a university dorm killed a number of students. Attacks on fuel infrastructure are causing fuel queues, and attacks on bridges around Crimea have isolated the region from supply and support, generating considerable misery. Civilians are killed every day by drone strikes. American and European politicians are openly calling for the strategic defeat and dismemberment of Russia.

The Russian population is now extremely angry, and is increasingly pressuring the leadership to act decisively. Russia has been holding back manpower and capabilities, partly in order to avoid the full scale mobilisation that transitioning from special military operation to all out war would entail, and to avoid taking any more casualties than absolutely necessary. However, this may be about to change. There are powerful calls for Russia to restore deterrence, by taking out the government in Kiev and taking the fight directly to the decision-making centres in Europe. Professor Karaganov used to be a lone voice in this regard, but no longer. He suggests that it may be necessary to use a nuclear weapon against Western Europe, although Russia has plenty of conventional means to show Europe it means business. It has weponry that NATO has no response to, but may still be concerned about what may happen if retaliation for the many attacks against it may trigger Article 5, and bring it into direct (as opposed to the current indirect) conflict with all of NATO.

Russia initially claimed four oblasts – Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhia – in addition to Crimea which had oreviously be annexed after a decisive referendum. Now they alpear to have recognised that preventing further attacks deep into Russia likely requires them to take more territory as a buffer zone. Putin now talks about reclaiming the traditionally Russian territories of Novorossiya, which would include another four oblasts – Kharkov, Nikolaev, Dnipro, and Odessa – with inroads into Sumy as well. Kiev may also be a target. Belarus may become involved at some point as well. Taking Odessa would be particularly important, as this would deprive Ukraine of a port through which to import weapons. As a landlocked rump state, Ukraine would not be a viable political entity. Takin gover Odessa would also allow Russia to connect with the Russian-speaking population of Transdniestria (part of Moldova), which has been under threat.

Progress has been relatively slow thsi past year, largely thanks to the effectiveness of drone warfare. This prevents troops from aggregating in large numbers for an offensive, and makes crossing open territory extremely dangerous. Every movement in the open can be immediately detected, and a drone dispatched to take out personnel. This is a very different kind of warfare, where drone operators are the deadliest component. It isn’t obvious yet how Russia may be intending to ramp up its offensive, given that drones will comtinue to be a major factor. One aspect of recent strategy has been the targeting of gas stations across eastern Ukraine, in order to hamper Ukrainian logistics.

Aggressive rhetoric from Europe combined with Ukrainian proxy forces adorned with Nazi tattoos act as a powerful reminder of WW2 for the Russians, and that was a war that cost them over 20 million people. Europe isn’t actually capable of invading Russia, but constantly threatening to do so anyway is raising the temperature considerably. This is extremely dangerous. Europe is playing with fire, quite likely literally. So is the US, which is flailing around with no strategic vision of what it’s trying to accomplish and how. Trumpian optics seem to be all that matters, but illusion is going to be dispelled by reality in the relatively near future.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the US never intended to honour the agreement it signed with Iran. The empire never negotiates in good faith. It always uses negotiations as cover for buying time to improve its own position. There is no point in attempting to negotiate with utterly an untrustworthy party that will stab you in the back at the first opportunity. The elder Khamenei apparently understood this, but the reformer faction under President Pezeshkian does not. The younger Khamenei has given Penzeshkian leave to proceed with negotiations despite his stated reservations, but the opportunity is not likely to last in the face of the perfidious actions of the American/Israeli axis. The US and its rabid attack dog are agreement incapable and will continue their quest for supremacy no matter the price the whole world will have to pay.

From the American perspective, the point of the MOU was not to end its aggression against Iran, but to open the strait of Hormuz, find ways to degrade Iran’s ability to manage it, lull Iran into a false sense of security, facilitate Israel’s destruction of its allies in Lebanon, and buy themselves time for renewed attempts at destroying Iran in accordance with Israel’s demands. The first clause of the MOU states that Lebanon is included in the ceasefire, but the US and Israel then arranged for a second MOU with the Lebanese puppet regime that directly contradicts the MOU with Iran. That agreements allows for permanent Israeli occupation of much of Lebanon, while setting the stage for a bloody civil war in the country. The Lebanese army is now tasked with disarming Hezbollah, which it is incapable of doing since it’s no more than a local police force because it’s not allowed by its US masters to possess any real military equipment. The point is to set the rest of the country against the Shia population in the south, which is being systematically driven out of their homes and their villages then destroyed. Israel then threatens to bomb anyone who gives the refugees shelter. It seeks to genocide the Shia population of Lebanon just as it has been doing with the population of Gaza.

The US also refuses to lift sanctions or to return frozen Iranian assets as it agreed to do. It has been pressuring Oman to allow vessels to transit Hormuz by hugging its coastline, and when Iran disables such vessels, the US uses that as an excuse to target Iranian radars along their coast that are used to manage the strait. It uses financial leverage to control its vassals – extending or withdrawing credit, and holding power over domestic banking systems in a way that would allow them to destroy a country’s economy at will. The reserve currency and the SWIFT system have been fully weaponised in order to leverage the remaining power of the empire, even as it destroys itself internally.

Its economy is failing, its people are divided and demoralised, it’s drowning in unrepayable debt, and its military has been revealed as far less powerful than it once was, despite the obscene amounts of money wasted on it. Financial power, backed by technological control through AI, is being substitued for military power, but that can only last for so long until enough of the world manages to extract itself from the dollar system and from the malign influence of the technical industrial complex exemplified by Palantir. The attempt to force support for US debt on to the rest of the world at the retail level through stablecoins, and to subjugate the global population through control of its data, is a last ditch effort preserve and cement that power. However, the extreme contralisation of control that’s being attempted is unlikely to succeed in an energy constrained world, given that the ability to maintain complexity is a function of surplus energy.

The empire is mired in Thucydides trap, fighting its own decline in the most destructive way possible, at the expense of the entire world. The rising power lies in the east, although it too is facing a wide range of challenges. The destruction of energy infrastructure, and of the capacity for production and distribution, is going to be globally devastating, as will the collapse of complex supplies chains and trade with the reversal of globalisation. Many countries in the east have severe demographic challenges, with birthrates far below replacement rate and young people demoralised to the point no longer wanting to have children. China, Japan and South Korea all have collapsing birthrates, and Russia’s is also low despite the wealth of natural resources providing for self-sufficiency that should insulate it from much of the impact of deglobalisation. The empire’s drone war against it is clearly harming both demographics and necessary infrastructure. India and Africa are still growing, but India is facing challenges with regard to energy, water, and agricultural capacity. An exodus is increasingly likely.

The Great Reset as proposed is meant to be a great subjugation of the many by the international hyper-wealthy few, with the super-rich continuing to live their jet-setting gilded lives off the backs of an enslaved (albeit greatly reduced) global majority, but this is a vision grounded in extreme hubris and a failure to grasp reality. The few depend on the labour of productivity of the many in ways they fail to understand. They depend of an energy supply that they take utterly for granted, assuming that they can maintain their own level of luxury by simply depriving the rest of virtually everything. Their gated communities and walled greenzones are likely to become gilded prisons once the abused masses eventually turn on them, as history suggests will happen. For the moment people have too much to lose, but once they have nothing left to lose, revolution becomes their only option. Unfortunately a great deal of destruction is inevitable as the dynamic of attempted control and inevitable failure plays out. Those who are left standing in the aftermath will rebuild with the remaining resources and infrastructure, but not to anywhere near our current standard of living. The heights we achieved were thanks to the fossil fuels that we’re currently destroying, and those heights will not be regained. Human development is still possible of course, but not in the purely material terms we have come to expect. Stability and trust can be rebuilt eventually, but at much smaller scale and with far more realistic expectations. The process will likely take decades, as trust destroyed takes a very long time to re-establish. Humanity less obsessed with material gain and more interested in working together, at least within a smaller trust horizon, for mutual benefit would ultimately be a happier humanity. The march of history will continue its rise and fall as it has for millennia.

Sun Tzu was right, and the US is continuing to double down on the biggest mistake in its history. Nothing about this war has gone the way the empire, in its hubris, expected. It’s been an unmitigated disaster from day one, when they tripple tapped a girls’ school with tomahawks and also martyred Khamenei, which was a fate he had chosen due to the unifying effect it would have on the country. After many failed attempts to destroy Iran’s offensive and defensive capacity, and in the face of a shortage if its own weaponry, the US called a halt, and extended an quasi-ceasefire for weeks. After Trump was informed of the dire consequences for the US and global economies if the strait of Hormuz remained closed for much longer, he decided to sign a Memoramdum of Understanding (MOU) which amounted to an American surrender. The terms reflected Iran’s position almost entirely. However, this caused such a backlash domestically that Trump and his spokespeople have been walking it back ever since, and have now violated it in multiple ways.

The MOU clearly states that all hostilities must permanently cease, and that Lebanon is to be included in the ceasefire. It also states that Iran is to have sanctions lifted and its frozen assets returned, and that Iran is to retain control over the strait of Hormuz. Transits must be with permission, and must follow the route dictated by Iran. While Iran promised not to charge for passage for the 60 day negotiation period, it was clear that fees would be charged after that. The US rapidly repudiated all these condtions that it had signed up to. Israel made it clear that it had no intention of complying with the agreement, and that it would ignore any American demands to do so. It’s been actively undermining the MOU with continued bloodthirsty violence ever since, and may well conduct a false flag operation if it feels the US resolve to take Iran down is wavering. Most recently, Israel signed a new MOU with the puppet government of Lebanon, which already answers to Israel on all matters. The Lebanese government agreed to allow Israel to permanently occupy a large chunk of the country, which it has already depopulated and desecrated, and also to disarm Hezbollah. It is not capable of this, since the Lebanese army is scarcely more than a local police force. The agreement will likely lead to civil war in Lebanon, since it’s opposed by a large percentage of the population, who regard it as a treasonous betrayal of the country.

The original MOU between the US and Iran is now on life support, if not already dead, as the US has violated its terms definitively. Iran fired on ships attempting, with American encouragement, to take an unapproved route through the strait with out permission, as it had warned it would do, and as it was allowed to do under the MOU. The US accused Iran of violating the agreement and bombed Iranian islands in the Gulf. Iran responded by bombing American bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. So far the US has not responded to that, but it may yet do so. However, orders have been given to withdraw men and materiel from the region, so mixed messages are being sent. The US is refusing to allow frozen assets to be returned, but nehind the scenes gulf states have said they may do this themselves. They increasingly realise that Iran is now a very powerful player in the region, and that they will have to learn to coexist. It’s very likely that they will choose not to allow the bombed out US bases on their territory to be rebuilt. In some cases that may not be possible anyway, as Iran will not be allowing American or Israeli ships access to the Gulf in the future.

If the US tries to continue hostilities, or the option of hostilities, the consequences for the global economy will be catastrophic. Iran can close the strait at any time, and can easily outwait the empire, as it’s largely self-sufficient. In contrast, the US strategic reserve is approaching tank bottom, and its ability to manipulate the oil price will shortly come to an end. The price has been held down by a combination of factors – two small pipelines bypassing the Gulf, railway and road transport, price manipulation by speculators in the futures market, and by a substantial cut in Chinese demand for imports. Because the price has been kept lower than circumstances would warrant, there has been little or not demand destruction, as people have been lulled into a false sense of security. There’s no sense of impending crisis among the western populations, although there has been in Asia. The result of this in the west will likely be a sudden onset fuel crisis sometime around the beginning of northern hemisphere autumn, or in other words right before the US midterm elections. China’s drop in demand may be deliberately helping to set up this scenario.

As Chris Martenson points out, the US and others would be forced to triage access to fuel, especially diesel. The military will get first dibs, and it will be demanding aviation fuel, which will have to be produced instead of diesel. Next will be truckers, then farmers, then the public last of all. The odds of the public having access are low. Gasoline would probably last longer than diesel, since the US can make gasoline from its own production of short chain hydrocarbons, but will not be able to make much diesel or aviation fuel or bunker fuel without imports of longer chain hydrocarbons, and it is this class of inputs that is heavily impacted by the closure of the strait. This is the resource in high demand worldwide, all for the same reason. The destruction of Russian energy infrastructure by NATO-backed forces in Ukraine is exaccerbating this problem.

The coming crisis is going to hit complacent western countries that have been used to a relatively high standard of living very hard. It will act to force through a rationing agenda already proposed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and soundly rejected by the people. With little access to fuel, westerners used to easy transport will find themselves grounded, likely in the 15 minute cities that the WEF has championed. The lack for fuel for farming, combined with a lack of fetiliser from the Gulf and the highly destructive anti-farming policies increasingly in place, will limit the food supply. The WEF policies call for people to be forced to eat insects and fake meat made from extremely unhealthy ingredients, with the food supply under the control of the psychopathic Epstein class. This exploitative group is also pushing an AI-mediated police/surveillance state to deal with the inevitable unrest. This would amount to the ultimste in central planning – or communism with better planning committees as Chris Martenson describes it. WEF policies also encourage unchecked immigration of young men of military age to the west from places that are culturally incompatible, in order to weaken a sense of national identity. This aggravates the deliberate polarisation that has been going on for years, which is intended to disrupt social cohesion to the point where people will not be able to cooperate to challenge what is being inflicted upon them. Klaus Schwab of the WEF said years ago that western values would be tested to the limit, and that is about to happen.

This constellation of policies and events is going to hasten the rise of China at the expense of the west, as the petrodollar is increasingly supplanted by the digital petroyuan, and power shifts eastwards from 500 years of western maritime dominance to control by land-based powers in accordance with Mackinder’s heartland theory. Many western leaders look to China as a model to be copied, but either they fail to recognise the brutal authoritarianism of the CCP or they understand it and want that level of control over their own people. China is the world’s manufacturing hub, but it’s on the verge of economic crisis as its bubble bursts, as well as on the verge of a demographic collapse due to the excesses of the previous one child policy. It’s a very low trust and entirely transactional society, where an increasing percentage of its people are psychologically broken by repression and deprived of both mental health support and any outlet for their greivances. As a result, revenge against society attacks are rapidly increasing. Extreme central control at large scale is a recipe for humanitarian catastrophies. This is where the west is increasingly heading.

People need to overcome their divisions and act to oppose the destructive policies and work together to compensate for the coming lack of energy. That energy deficit will do more than prevent people moving around. It will also cause global supply chains to collapse, meaning that many goods will cease to be available. Pooling resources and sharing infrastructure will be increasingly necessary, albeit difficult psychologically for many. Communities must learn to look after each other, and help each other to resist the imposition of extreme centralisation policies, many of which would have the effect of depopulation, which is also a WEF goal. One bright spot is that energy crisis will likely derail the implementation of AI control strategies, which are extremely energy-intensive, as well as capital-intensive when the global economy as at the end of a major debt cycle. The Epstein class has likely overreached in its hubris, and the consequences they could face as accountability ultimately comes for them could be very unpleasant. The rest of us will then be busy rebuilding from the bottom up.

The strait of Hormuz is partially open, but only for ships prepared to follow the new rules, and not for ships from hostile nations. If Israel continues its muder and destruction spree in the Lebanon, then even this level of passage will stop. Threats from both Israel and the US have not stopped, and threats are antithetical to real negotiations. Israel has said it will continue the slaughter. On the first day at the planned negotiations in Switzerland, Trump threated to assassinate the Iranian negotiation team before they could even leave the country if they didn’t agree to his demands. The Iranian team was about to leave, but the Saudi foreign minister told the Pakistanis not to let them leave, and that Saudi Arabia and Qatar would guarantee the return of the frozen Iranian assets themselves. Israel intended to assassinate the Pakistani mediation team, but was told in no uncertain terms that Israel would be erased from the map if it tried. None of this bodes well for a negotiated settlement.

Trump is panicking because he’s finally realised the situation with the global oil market, and that a global depression is coming, but the realisation has come too late to prevent a major crisis. When he panics he becomes even less able to behave like an adult, much less a leader. No one takes him seriously anymore, and the Iranians consult psychologists used to dealing with the mentally ill before engaging with what he says. The US has about two weeks of reserves left, and the crunch point for a price spike will be no later than the end of August. This will be political poison for Trump right before the midterms. If he loses he will be impeached and likely convicted this time, because the country can see what an utter disaster he’s been.

A fuel crunch can no longer be prevented. It was baked in the cake almost from the beginning of the war, and the time it will take to restore any semblance of normality grows longer the longer the conflict drags on. The war caused a major spike in demand for military jet fuel, but jet fuel is produced at the expense of diesel, so either the military stops flying sorties or trucks stop running at some point. Terms must be agreed and adhered to, but the positions of both sides are far apart. Trump cannot accept the inevitable surrender described in the MOU he signed, either politically or psychologically. Even if an agreement is somehow reached, mines must be cleared, trapped tankers need maintenance, oil cargos must be tested and perhaps blended, and those ships must then head to their destinations at approximately the speed of a bicycle. It will probably take a year, even if the conflict ends tomorrow. Trump needs the war to end immediately. In contrast, Netanyahu needs the conflict to continue for his political survival, and to keep him out of jail. The two malignant narcisists have opposite political imperatives, meaning that a positive way forward is very unlikely.

Iran and Pakistan are behaving like the adults in the room, and both are emerging as significant powers. Various Gulf countries are also acting behind the scenes in an attempt to prevent a catastrophy, as well as to devise a new security architecture for the region. The Saudi foreign minister has invited General Mounir, head of the army in Pakistan and chief mediator, to meet in Riyadh to discuss a military pact and security umbrella based on Pakistan’s nuclear capability. They recognise that American hegemony is coming to an end, and that Israel has over-reached and will collapse without US backing. They also recognise that Iran is now much more powerful than it was before the war, and is now a force to be respected and dealt with accordingly. Pakistan’s profile has also been raised significantly. Pakistan has acted to prevent Israel from assassinating Iranian leaders after the murder of Ali Larijani by hacking their AI targeting system. They have acted as a stabilising force wherever possible.

China is backing the new energing reality behind the scenes, with technical assitance and encouragment. They’re continuing to build out pipelines and railways to bypass maritime chokepoints controlled vy the US, so as to provide greater security of supply for themselves. Supporting stability in the Gulf is a major priority for them. That stability will require the exit of the US, which no longer has functional military bases there, and the subduing of the Israeli violence that has kept the region destabilised for decades. It remains to be seen how this will play out, but the world will be experiencing a form of trial by fire in the meantime.

The memorandum of understanding with Iran is extremely fragile. It amounts to an American surrender, but domestic pressure in the US is making it impossible for the regime to admit to the terms it recently signed. Trump’s style of deal-making, which may have worked in the New York City real estate world, is to appear to agree initially, but then hit the other side with extreme and unpredictable demands in order to create anxiety and intimidate the other party into making concessions. This does not work at all in the world of international relations. Trump is agreement incapable. He fails to remember what he agreed to and changes his mind constantly. There’s no consistency, no trust and no respect for the interests of the other side.

Trump is now saying that no fees will be paid by ships after the sixty day period of the negotiations. He’s also saying that unfrozen Iranian assets will be used to bail out American farmers, and that Iran has agreed to an IAEA inspection process for all of its nuclear sites. Iran has never agreed to any of that, and none of it is in the MOU. Iran never will agree to it. Nor will it agree to limit its missiles or give up its ability to enrich uranium for the purpose of power generation or the production of medical isotopes. Iran and Oman will be jointly managing Hormuz, with fees, after the 60 days, as it clearly says in the MOU. It lies entirely within their territorial waters, so this is reasonable. Turkey does the same with ships transiting the Bosphorus. Trump says that Hormuz is fully open, but this is untrue. Some ships have passed through, all of which are headed for China, India, and Singapore. It is not open for shipping from hostile nations, and attempts to transit without permission will be met with live fire.

Iran will achieve peak leverage once global reserves have run out, which will likely be the case by the end of August or beginning of September. It is already being recognised in the region as a major power, although the US will never acknowledge this. The US has no viable military option, despite claims that it will take over Hormuz and run it for their own profit. Such claims are delusional. It’s the US that’s in a very poor negotiating position, having already depleted their weaponry in a war against a defensive fortress. Iran can handle a long seige. It can easily out-wait the US. Oil will not flow anything like normally for well into next year, even if the war does end soon. It will take months to clear mines, and no insurance will be available in the meantime. Ships may leave, but few will return to pick up cargoes while there’s a risk of becoming trapped.

Israel is determined to destroy the MOU. They will not accept the continued existence of Lebanon in general and Hezbollah in particular. Both Israel and the US insist that ending hostilities in Lebanon is not part of the MOU, but it clearly is. Israel has already said it will not comply, and it continues to murder civilians. However, the fighting in Lebanon is causing considerable consternation in Israel due to the high number of casualties, and the perception that the war is being fought to bolster Netanyahu’s electoral chances. Netanyahu needs the war to continue in order to win the election and keep himself out of jail, and he wants Trump’s endorsement. He also wants to visit America to oversee the bill that would fully blend the American and Israeli militaries. Trump needs the war to end for electoral reasons. Both men are ruthless and will say anything to get their own way. It remains to be seen who caves. In the meantime, Iran is doing well, and with its prospects steadily improving. If nuclear weapons stay in their silos, Iran will have definitively won. If nuclear weapons are unleashed then all hell will break loose globally, and the result will be everyone loses.

Trust is the most critical factor upon which societies’ functionality rests. Relationships of trust are foundational at all times. In small tribal groups, trust is personal because everyone knows everyone else. As societies scale up, personal trust is no longer possible, so trust tends to manifest in the set of rules by which the society is governed, and in leaders or other prominent people. In high trust societies, people are generally self-governing. They follow rules that make sense, and that they believe are in the best interests of all. They don’t need to be monitored or coerced.

It takes a long time of relative stability to create a high trust society, because trust takes a long time to build. Expanding trust is characteristic of expansionary times in general, when commerce is increasing across long distances, and people come to recognise common humanity in a wider range of others who are not exactly like them. Unfortunately, trust takes very little time to destroy once expansionary times come to an end and the wealth pie begins to shrink. In fact the erosion of trust typically begins well before actual contraction, because late stage expansion tends to be characterised by a loss of integrity in leadership and increasing corruption. Rules become increasingly nonsensical or contradictory, and move towards benefiting the few at the expense of the many. Trust disappears as these factors become increasingly obvious.

As the population becomes aware that elites are above the law, a tipping point is reached where the rule of law ceases to exist in most people’s minds. They don’t see why they should follow rules that are not in the general interest, and that tend to impose wildly disproportionate sanctions of those at the bottom of the financial food chain. Conceited elites look at the rest of the population as closer to livestock to be exploited than as fellow citizens. They may think of themselves as a different – and superior – species. At this point, the population ceases to be self-governing, and elites, who never trusted the masses, impose repressive surveillance and control mechanisms.

Elites know what typically happens to those in power during a substantial contraction. They want to remain safely unaccountable for their many transgressions, so they seek to control every aspect of the lives of everyone else as a means of self-preservation. Technology has unfortunately made this more feasible than ever before. The techbros of Silicon Valley have managed, through the criminal DOGE initiative, to steal everyone’s private data that was held by the government, and they already had access to people’s personal information and social connections through their social media accounts and other online presence. This allows them unprecedented control over people, through the social credit scores mediated by programmable digital finance that they’re busily developing.

However, extreme centralisation, especially at that level of resolution, requires a huge increase in socioeconomic complexity, and socioeconomic complexity is a function of surplus energy available to society. The energy available to society is currently being deliberately reduced through both the war in the Middle East and the war between Ukraine and Russia. In the Middle East, 20% of global oil supply, and 40% of the supply of oil for export, is mostly offline, although this is partially mitigated by pipelines, railways, road transport, and shipping deals with non-combatant countries. Countries are currently burning through their reserves, but those will be exhausted by approximately early September, and in some places much earlier. In the Russia/Ukraine war, energy infrastructure is being deliberately targeted by both sides, and Russian oil exports are being subjected to blockades and piracy. There is not going to be sufficient energy for a major increase in socioeconomic complexity. There won’t even be enough to maintain the current level. Elites do plan to prevent more than a bare minimum of energy access for most people, but even if they deprive the masses, they still won’t have sufficient energy for their plans to succeed, other than perhaps fleetingly. Compounding a lack of energy with the outright collapse of the trust horizon is a guarantee of failure.

China is the best example today of a very low trust society. Western elites envy the level of control the CCP has over the people and seek to emulate the highly repressive Chinese police state that developed as a consequence of the erosion of trust. People there are denied access to any information about negative happenings, in order to prevent them blaming their government. They are not allowed to criticise the government or oetition for change. The country is already slipping into an economic depression, led by the collapsing real estate sector, and people are becoming increasingly desperate as they may not be paid for months. There is no social safety net, and no help for people who are struggling with mental health as a result of the atomisation of society. When people snap, as they’re increasingly doing, they engage in revenge against society attacks, such as frequent incidents of deliberate vehicular manslaughter.

As western countries watch trust evaporate, their revenge against society attacks tend to be mass shootings, especially in America where trust is disappearing at a very rapid rate due to obvious and overwhelming political corruption. All the countries that pushed the covid lies and coerced people into taking toxic shots, are following this trajectory. Europe, led by incompetent political zealots, is tearing itself apart in a self-inflicted horror show. Australia is becoming highly authoritarian. New Zealand is deliberately digging itself into a monstrous debt hole, so as to tax people out of their homes and hand the real estate to billionaires seeking to escape the consequences of their own actions.

More and more people are waking up to an understanding that the elites consider most of us to be ‘useless eaters’ and wasters of financial resources. The poor, disabled, and elderly are being particularly targeted for removal, amid a general depopulation drive. Even if their plans for societal control fail, as is very likely, they will still have created so much chaos in the attempt that population reduction will be inevitable. Major shortages of both energy and food are coming due to the impact of the wars, and conflict is likely to spread as trust decays further. Trust determines effective organisational scale, and as it collapses, political aggregations will fracture as the ‘us vs them’ dynamic reasserts itself. To be effective, work at community scale. Build and nurture relationships of trust before it’s too late, because those will be the bedrock people will need to rely on when the centralised life-support systems fail.

Trump signed the American surrender at Versailles, where Germany surrendered and agreed to pay reparations at the end of World War One. However, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is already in trouble. Israel refuses to abide by it and has attacked Lebanon again, so Hormuz is closed again. In addition, Trump is already repudiating parts of what he himself recently signed after tremendous pushback from allies and donors at home. Among other things, he’s claiming that Iran will not be charging fees after the 60 day negotiation period, and that the US may charge fees. This is preposterous, and contrary to the MOU. The very idea that the US is any kind of guardian angel to the region is laughable, after having started the war and failed to protect any of its allies. Trump is once again trying to rewrite reality by fiat. Hormuz lies in Iranian and Omani territorial waters. They will retain control and charge for passage. The matter will not even be discussed with the US, which will have no role.

Trump had signed the MOU after being told that leaving Hormuz closed was leading to an economic catastrophy, which had been obvious to everyone else since the beginning of the war. He had been made aware, belatedly, that there were no further military options available, so ending the war was the only viable choice. Trump made it clear that his only real focus was the stock market, and that he thinks if the market goes up everything must be fine. He’s even on the record saying, in a jaw-dropping display of arrogance and hubris, that the stock market is more brilliant than everyone but himself. These are the terms officially agreed to:

And this is the comparison between the MOU and the previous JCPOA:

Trump appears to believe that the signing the MOU has avoided an energy crunch and financial catastrophy, but this is wildly incorrect. The ships trapped in the Gulf will need to queue up to leave, which will take weeks. Then they’ll need to head back to port for maintenance, for instance to be cleaned of barnacles. The oil they’re carrying will have degraded, so must be tested and perhaps blended before delivery, which will then take weeks before destination ports are reached. The energy crisis will last well in to next year, and likely longer, even if the agreement is fully adhered to, which is currently looking unlikely. It will be exacerbated by a demand spike as all countries will be wanting to build large reserves as insurance against further conflict and disruption. Supply will be lower than before, perhaps permanently due to damage to shut in fields and risk aversion leading to insurance problems. Lower supply combined with higher demand is a recipe for extremely high prices. This will inevitably lead to rationing and ordinary people being priced out of the market in many, if not most, places.

The energy crisis is going to lead to financial crisis as well, as explained here:

Turkey is selling gold, because it needs to buy diesel. It already sold its US treasuries, and is now selling off what it should most want to be keeping. It’s not doing this because it wants to, but because it has no choice. It needs the energy. Many other countries are about to find themselves in the same boat. The countries that are the most vulnerable are those which import most or all of their energy and which keep their reserves in dollars. High energy prices combined with dollar shortages are going to force them to sell whatever they can in order to buy what they must.

If vulnerable countries begin to sell US debt, it’s going to begin to look increasingly risky. Selling pushes down the price, meaning that early sellers benefit most. Selling feeds fear and fear in turn feeds more selling. The risk is a rapid cascade in the bond market. This would force the US to raise interest rates in order to attract buyers, but the interest rate on the ten year bond is already close to a dangerous limit. If it goes much higher, the US will enter a doom loop, where its enormous debt begins to compound on itself. If the interest rate on the debt is higher than the rate if growth of the economy, the US will enter an exploding debt scenario.

Turkey’s sell off of treasuries began in March when the spot price for oil was much lower, and they only began to sell gold after selling 90% of their treasury holdings. There are currently price cushions due to stored reserves, but those are rapidly depleting, notably in the US, which has been stabilising the price by exporting its strategic petroleum reserve. The US is doing this in order to prevent a cascade of selling in the bond market if many countries were forced to liquidate treasury holdings at once. However, once the heavily manipulated futures price and the spot price inevitably converge, as those reserves run out in a couple of weeks, oil prices will spike and that cascade becomes increasingly likely. The US could choose to default on its debt or to print money, and given that choice it will print and destroy the dollar. Already gold has replaced treasuries as the defacto reserve store of value, and this will become increasingly clear over time.

Once countries run out of things to sell in order to get hold of dollars to buy oil or refined products, there will be massive unrest, and potentially revolutions. Sri Lanka is the poster child for this. In 2020 it lost its critical tourist revenue, and its crop yields fell off a cliff after an attempt at rapidly converting from conventional fertilisers to a fully organic system. It entered a polycrisis exacerbated by a dollar shortage, and this culminated in the leader being forced to flee the country after a period of tremendous unrest. Fertiliser will also be an issue this time, as much of this also comes from the Gulf and is also blocked. It’s orice will spike as well, and it may not be available at any price. If this dynamic was occuring simultaneously in many countries, as it very likely will be, there would be no one to come to the rescue this time. Crunch time is rapidly approaching. Brace for impact.

The US and Iran have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which could be described as a ‘concept of a plan’ as Trump previously described his non-existent plans for healthcare reform, but the tentative agreement remains problematic and fragile. The two main groups opposed to it are Israel and many Americans. Israel has already said it refuses to be bound by a ceasefire that requires them to stop their barbaric violence in Lebanon and leave the country. Israel is determined to sabotage the agreement, and has demonstrated this by increasing the level of their violence. Government minister Itamar Ben Gvir has stated that all of Lebanon must burn, and that the deaths if any of their invasion force must be responded to by slaughtering Lebanese at a ration of a thousand to one. Resistance to Israel’s barabrism is being treated as criminal. He’s also called for kidnapping and abusing Lebanese women and children with a view to intimidating Hezbollah. Iran reserves the right to target Israel without warning if this occurs.

The second group opposing the MOU is composed of Americans of both parties. Trump’s zionist donors and supporters are horrified. Many Democrats are also opposed, because they believe the false propaganda about Iran being an evil regime. They’re also trying to score political points against Trump by saying what they think people want to hear. The agreement does amount to an American surrender, and many ordinary Americans are wondering why so much money and so much bluster has led only to capitulation. Iran’s demands were actually quite reasonable, but very few Americans understand the situation at all, and so do not realise this. The domestic opposition to the MOU may well force Trump to abandon it, as he typically caves when confronted with pushback. He’s in a truly unenviable position, cast as having betrayed both the US and Israel, and he has no way out. The impending oil catastrophy that prompted him to make the deal will happen anyway, as the strategic reserve is virtually empty, and it will take months to restore passage through Hormuz even if the MOU holds, and that is looking unlikely.

Israel has lost the support of most Americans, especially young people of both sides of the political aisle. People are now openly talking about the attack on the USS Liberty and murder of many American military personnel by the Israelis under the Johnson adminstration. They are speculating about an Israeli role in the assassinations of JFK and Charlie Kirk, and potential involvement in the 911 attacks. Israel knows it will never have American backing for further military excursions once the next generation comes to power. Therefore they regard the present as their last chance to force through their Great Israel project, which thay cannot do without American support. However, it’s likely already too late, thankfully. Israel seeks security by destroying all its neighbours, taking their land and resources, and keeping them radically insecure. It should have faced vastly more international opposition than has, and the lack of pushback is a matter of considerably shame for the international community. The hypocrisy of the West’s erstwhile position on human rights has been fully revealed.

Trump’s chosen envoys – zionists Kushner and Witkoff – are also being blamed for their abject failure as they played at diplomacy with zero experience, and with personal enrichment as their top priority. The corruption they openly displayed was unprecedented. The most recent and blatant display of this has been Kushner’s attempt to to buy a strategic island from the extremely corrupt leader of Albania, situated at a choke point between the Adriatic and Ionian seas and fully equipped with military infrastructure including nuclear bunkers. Zionists, perceiving the threat to the territory of Israel, are now attempting to take over Cyprus and Albania as a Plan B. This is thankfully attracting considerable opposition.