The US has paused the Gulf war again, but not from a desire for peace. Apparently Trump was told by the US military that they lacked the necessary armaments to pursue Trump’s plan, at least for now, meaning that they need another period to rearm and reorganise before reigniting the conflict yet again. The US is attempting a controlled demolition of developing multipolarity, trying to degrade all its potential adversaries without sparking an immediate panic. It tries to over-stretch its opponents militarily, while attacking them through the financial system, arming dissident factions, providing intel and satellite imaging to its proxies, imposing sanctions to immiserate the opposing population, and hoping the government would be blamed and eventually overthrown. This worked in Syria, and is now being applied against Russia and Iran, with (so far) indirect impacts on China. The US intends to define a new “axis of evil’ to include Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea, and may stage a false flag attack to encourage Americans to support wars they currently reject.
The war in the Gulf has recently spread in two new directions. First the US encouraged Saudi Arabia to bomb the airport in Yemen as the Yemeni delegation to Khamenei’s funeral was returning to the country. Yemen is now retaliating by blockading the Bab-al-Mandab to Saudi shipping, warning tankers not to load up at Yanbu port on the Red Sea, and bombing both Yanbu and the major refinery at Jazan. This was the most advanced refinery in the world, but it seems to have suffered substantial damage. Saudi exports of oil are now greatly reduced, compounding the effect of the closure of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia was offered a nuclear enrichment deal, which may have been the inducement to attack Yemen, but they don’t seem to have anticipated the intense backlash. Trump tried to change the terms of the deal with the Saudis almost immediately, as he previously did with the MOU with Iran, saying the deal was conditional on the Saudis signing the Abraham Accords with Israel, which they will never do. The US has also been pressuring Pakistan to declare its support for Saudi Arabis against Yemen by dangling an $18 billion stabilisation fund for the Pakistani rupee. This could compromise Pakistan’s ability to act as a mediator in the war, and could instead draw them into it. The UK has also made itself a target by allowing its bases to be used to launch attacks on Iran, for which Iran has said it will retaliate. Iran has z target list for European infrastructure should Europe be drawn into the war in the Gulf.
The second expansion appears to be occurring following an attack by Ukraine on an Iranian ship in the Black Sea. Iran has said it will retaliate. Zelensky said he’s entitled to attack Iranian shipping because Iran is an ally of Russia, and Iran provided the original Shahid drones that were developed into the very effective Russian Geran drones. This seem like a blatant attempt by Zelensky to curry favour with the Americans, draw them firmly back into both conflicts, and combine the wars. There is also pressure for a frozen conflict from Khazakstan, which has had its exports curtailed due to Ukrainian attacks on Black Sea ports used for Caspian Sea exports. If the wars do in fact combine, this could morph into full-blown WW3 very quickly. A controlled process would then cease to be possible, as wars take on a life of their own. The US has been concealing its casualty numbers, but if the real numbers are leaked, this could precipitate an uncontrolled situation domestically, quite possibly raising the risk of dramatic retaliation.
The war in the Gulf is funded through the rest of this year, although it remains to be seen if the necessary weaponry is also available, given the long timeframe for weapons production in the US. The US could easily become the party fatally over-stretched. It still believes in its own supremacy, but those days are clearly over. It still controls most of the levers of international finance, and so can still pressure vassal states to act against their own interests on pain of economic destruction, but its conventional military strength is greatly reduced. Of course this may mean it would resort to a nuclear attack. Israel could also resort to this – the Samson option – if it feels it’s about to suffer strategic defeat, and has said so since the days of Golda Meir. The US and Israeli militaries are about to be fully integrated, if the relevant bill passes the Senate, as it appears likely to do. They could collectively start a nuclear war. Netanyahu is currently on his way to the US and will likely be trying to convince Trump to escalate against Iran, as Israel will settle for nothing less than the country’s complete destruction. He typically presents ‘new intelligence’ to Trump, actually fabricated by the Israelis to manipulate him, playing on his narcissism and paranoia. So far he’s fallen for it every time, and in his greatly weakened mental state he may do so again, but that won’t solve the lack of conventional military capacity, hence the nuclear risk.
