Alistair Crooke is a former diplomat with deep ties to West Asia (ie the Middle East), and a fluent Arabic speaker married to a fluent Hebrew speaker. His analysis of the situation is always worth your time. It appears that the war with Iran is about to resume, as the US has moved a large quantity of military assets into the region, and Trump is behaving even more belligerently than usual. He says that Iran has not been punished enough for what he supposes they’ve done to others over the last 47 years, only what he think they’ve done is complete fantasy. Trump is obsessed with winning at all costs, and is psychologically incapable of backing down, no matter the odds against him. He believed that Iran could be handled like Venezuela, but now he’s trapped in a web of his own making. The Iranian people are more united than ever, especially the young, who are now filled with revolutionary fervour. For them this has been a form of rebirth of their civilisation, and they’re determined to escape once and for all from the prison of sanctions imposed on them for decades by their tormentors. They intend to drive the US from the Gulf region.
The greatest sponsor of violence against its neighbours has actually been Israel, and Israel’s goal in this war is the utter destruction of Iran, as it’s already destroyed Gaza and is now destroying southern Lebanon. It believes that security for itself can only be achieved by rendering all its neighbours radically and permenently insecure. It will keep undermining peace talks, and assassinating negotiators where possible, in order to keep the war going and keep the US engaged in it. The fractures in society are wide and growing though, and the IDF, undertanding its own limitations, is sounding the alarm about being over-extended.
The US is losing badly, as it’s unprepared for modern assymmetric warfare. Even staunch warmongers like Robert Kagan, writing in The Atlantic, are beginning to acknowledge the strategic defeat.
America specialises in over-complicated and expensive equipment, designed primarily with the profits of the military industrial complex in mind. Much of it is now obsolete in the era of missile and drone warfare. Aircraft carriers in particular are now just very expensive sitting ducks. A swarm of cheap drones could easily put one out of action just by damaging the flight deck, and a well placed missile could sink one. Their vulnerability means that they can’t get close to their intended target, meaning the distance is great enough that multiple refuelings of the fighter jets would be necessary for them to reach far enough to engage. The US is also running very low on inventories of its own missiles and interceptors. Restarting the war would be a disaster for all concerned, but it appears to be inevitable.
Already the consequences of the war will amount to a global disaster of epic proportions due to the loss of energy supplies and the imminent collapse of many other supply chains, notably for fertiliser. The longer the hostilities go on, the deeper the resulting global economic depression will be. Iran can wait it out, being largely self-sufficient and committed to fight to the end, but the US and Israel cannot. The US will shortly be experiencing an unprecedented price shock for fuel that will have a huge impact domestically, with political consequences. Israel’s economy has been ravaged by physical destruction, but also by emigration, and by reservists being kept from their jobs for prolonged periods.
Israel is in deep trouble. Civil war may be the result. In David Ben Gurion’s time, he made it clear that Israel would only be able to have a reserve army, and would need to remain within defensible borders. This has since been forgotten, and Israel has now been fighting with all its neighbours in an attempt to take posession of most of the the region for itself, as the Greater Israel project. The blue bars on the Israeli flag represent the Nile and the Euphrates, indicating the land claimed. Israeli soldiers wear patches with Greater Israel outlined on their uniforms. This would include all of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and portions of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Thinking that this might be possible is delusional.
Israel is in the grip of extreme messianic bloodlust, with the vast majority of the population supporting the extermination of their perceived enemies. The current inhabitants of the target countries are considered to be subhuman, as many flavours of Amalek, worthy only of being destroyed in their entirety. The zionists genuinely believe that others possess only two thirds of a soul, and that only they, as the ‘chosen people’, are fully human. As such they consider themselves above the law, and consider it permissible to do anything they like to their prisoners. Torture is common, and mass execution of prisoners is coming. This kind of collective taking leave of the senses damages the soul of a nation over the long term.
Iran will be controlling traffic through the Strait of Hormuz for the long haul, and is likely to become a great power in the region. If the war is restarted, much if the infrastructure of the Gulf countries is likely to be destroyed, rendering the region uninhabitable if the desalination plants are taken out. They are complicit due to hosting American bases and allowing their airspace to be used for attacks. Iran can hold hostage not only surface traffic, but also the numerous undersea cables that run through the area. It holds all the cards.
