For the 20th time, Trump made increasingly lurid threats against Iran and then backed down, in time with market opens and closings of course, so his hangers on could profit enormously. The US military has told him that there’s no path to victory , and the Gulf states have asked him not to assure their destruction, given that Iran has threatened to retaliate disproportionally against them if its civilian infrastructure is attacked. Trump appears to be buying time to prepare for another attack, but may well lack the capacity even after a delay. He’s desperately trying to avoid the inevitable loss, which Patrick Henningsen rightly says will be humiliating and historic, while insisting that Iran surrender to him or he will inflict “military terror” (a war crime of course). To Trump, every deal must be win-lose, strictly on his terms. Every deal must equal surrender by the other side, and this is not going to happen. His every accusation or claim is either a confession or confabulation, the latter being characteristic of frontotemporal dementia, where the afflicted tries to create their own reality by speaking it into existence.
Iran is not begging for a deal. They are not speaking to the US at all, because they recognise that Trump’s word means nothing, and that the US is agreement incapable. The US navy is not successfully blockading Hormuz. Iran has closed it, and has said it will remain closed until the war ends. There’s nothing the US can do to prevent this, and the US, and Trump specifically, will be blamed for the global consequences. It is the US empire, including its Israeli attack-dog, that has been destabilising and brutalising the region for decades, and is the largest state sponsor of terrorism, not Iran. US warships will never again be allowed into the Persian Gulf, and their bases there will never be rebuilt.
The US is using the Gulf states as a shield around Israel, while running a protection racket – extorting them while offering no actual protection. American bases on their territory not only offer no protection, but make them active targets. The monarchies are controlled by the US because their funds are in dollars, often in US banks. They could be financially destroyed on a whim, and the US is using this leverage against them to make them act against their own interests. Kuwait and Bahrain are being used to strike Iran and are paying a terrible price for it. Saudi Arabia was ‘encouraged’ to attack Yemen and Iraq. Its leader, MBS, is compromised due to his close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, as well as being financially comtrolled by Washington. Now its oil exports are blocked to the south and tankers are being told not to load at Saudi ports on pain of attack. It’s pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu has been damaged, as has its flagship refinery at Jazan and other important infrastructure in the country. If the Gulf states refused to comply, the US could simply arrange a military coup against their fragile sutocracies and install a compliant puppet regime, allowing them to control Gulf oil directly.
Israel has recently been staying out of the conflict while the US bleeds for it. Iran has not targeted Israel either. There are several reasons for this. Israel is in political and economic turmoil, and Iran might be choosing to let that play out without having to risk the Samsom option. Also, the US is withdrawing its troops from Gulf bases and concentrating them in Israel. Iran could in effect be herding US troops there in order for them to present a concentrated, target-rich environment later. Retired Israeli Major General Itzhak Brik has recently been warning in Haaretz that Israel’s military entanglements could result in the destruction of the country, but Netanyahu is focused only on his own electoral prospects and staying out of jail. Brik has said that Israel had no strategic intelligence and no cultural understanding of Iran. The country may eventually pay an enormous price for its acquisitiveness and bloodlust.
The US is determined to prevent the development of a Russia-Iran-India corridor, as well as acting to disrupt China’s Belt-and-Road initiative, as both of these represents building blocks in the formation of land-based Eurasian dominance, which is poised to eclipse the maritime powers that have been dominant for centuries. It will use all manner of financial leverage, physical threats, dirty tricks and mafia tactics to achieve this, but it will ultimately fail, as all empire trying to regain lost supremacy eventually do.
