The people of the Gulf live in a desert, but the population of the region far exceeds the natural carrying capacity. This has been possible due to the huge oil wealth of the area that’s allowed the various monarchies to build desalination plants to provide for adequate water supplies. They’ve also been building complex modern cities, along with ridiculous infrastructure like palm-shaped islands and indoor ski hills, allowing the population to live in an elevated state of luxury, with imported servants from all over the world, also sustained by the desalination plants. Now all that infrastructure is under threat, and the authoritatian monarchies are beginning to experience a rapid convergence with reality.
The Gulf countries are all vassals of the US empire, hosting huge American military bases, many luxury-loving western expats, data centres, American universities and more. Under the petrodollar system, they’ve invested heavily in American weaponry, not so much for anticipated use, but as tithe to the American military industrial complex. Now the region is at war – war begun by the US at the behest of Israel. The US is using the military infrastructure it built to conduct the war, but this is implicating the Gulf monarchies in the conflict, making them targets for retaliation. Some are more willing than others, and at least one – Qatar – has already said enough is enough, after their new $26 billion LNG plant took $20 billion of damage and will be offline for up to five years.
Israel, which has long coveted the land of the Arabs for lenbensraum, has a vested interest in keeping the conflict going, and specifically in encouraging Iran to retaliate against Gulf infrastructure. If the US appear reluctant to strike, Israel takes matters into its own hands in targeting Iranian infrastructure on a false flag basis. The intention is to provoke an internecine conflict between the Sunni monarchies and Shia Iran, in order to watch them destroy each other for Israel’s benefit.
Trump, who is likely being blackmailed as well as bribed to follow Israel’s lead, has been threatening to destroy Iran’s civilian infrastructure, notably its power grid, if a deal to open the Straits of Hormuz is not reached, but he’s building in progressive delays. Israel has stepped into the breach and begun to do what Trump threatened, including bombing Iran nuclear reactor at Bushehr multiple times. Iran is retaliating as promised, against both Israel and the Gulf countries, but so far in a measured way. The critical factor will be the desalination plants, upon which the Gulf is utterly dependent. Iran itself only uses desalination as a minor supplement to its water supply, but some Gulf countries are virtually 100% dependent on it, and all obtain the clear majority of their water in this way.
If the desalination plants are taken out, the result will be catastrophic. There is no alternative source that can be called upon for the millions of people living in the region. A lack of water in a desert is a death sentence in a matter of days, and it would be impossible to evacuate the region before a humanitarian catastrophe set in. The wealthy are already leaving the region if they can, although they mostly can’t expect any help from their own governments, and airports are being damaged. Others are simply trapped, hoping that their water supply survives. The depopulation of the Gulf is a distinct possibility at this point, but it isn’t Iran’s doomsday plan, it’s Israel’s.
The aggressors are not faring well in this war, even though they conceal or deny the damage they’re taking, and the consequences for the rest of the world are escalating. The energy supply impacts are bad enough – 20% of the world’s oil production offline – and states of emergency being declared in Asia. Other impacts may have a less immediate impact, but not less important to the global economyand the global population. 35% of the world’s fertiliser comes through the Straits of Hormuz, along with the sulphuric acid needed for chemical extraction in many industries, the helium required for the manufacture of computer chips in Taiwan, and many other commodities.
The cost and/or lack of availability of fertiliser is hitting the northern hemisphere exactly at planting time, guaranteeing that the window for planting will pass with much less planting done. Yields are very likely to be well down this year. The cost of agricultural fuel is also hitting farms very hard. In the southern hemisphere, expensive fuel and the looming potential for rationing, are affecting harvest season. This will all get much worse before it gets better, even if the war were to somehow end tomorrow, which is extremely unlikely.
Iran will be setting the timetable for the conflict, because they have escalation dominance. They have set conditions for the end of the war that the US will be unwilling to meet, so hostilities will continue. Declaring a false victory and going home will not be an option for America this time. Trump is trapped, and will take the blame for all of it when it turns into a complete disaster, which it will. Those who talked him into it, or blackmailed him into it, may escape accountability unfortunately.
Iran has 270 degree fire control over the Straits of Hormuz. They still have air defence, and many sea defences, despite lacking a conventional airforce or navy. They have huge numbers of the drones that have been so pivotal in the Ukraine war, and yet to use their most modern missiles. They have home field advantage over very challenging terrain. They are very unlikely to lose, even if carpet bombed with nuclear weapons. It’s very difficult to defeat a people who prize martyrdom and refuse to run even when their street gatherings are bombed.
In the meantime, the Straits of Hormuz now operate a tollgate system, requiring visual inspection to weed out vessels from hostile countries, a substantial toll paid in yuan, and evidence that the cargo has been purchased in yuan. This will generate billions of dollars per year for the Iranian economy, and will hasten the establishment of the petroyuan and the demise of the petrodollar.
Israel cleaerly wants the complete destruction of Iran as a state, so any attempt at an off-ramp is likely to be undermined by false flag attacks. Israel is already attacking infrastructure in the Gulf states with a view to starting a civil war between the Sunni and the Shia, so that they might destroy each other. Israel isn’t interested in regime change in Iran because that wouldn’t go far enough. They want the country bombed into the stone age, and balkanised into ethnic regions. Persians are just over 60% of the population, which also includes Kurds, Azeris, Baluchis, Arabs, Zoroastrians, Bahais, Jews, and Christians, all of whom have lived together for centuries. Some may prefer independence, but most do not. Israel will try to divide and rule as best it can.
It’s profoundly sad that Jews around the world who have nothing to do with this, and generally oppose it vehemently, will nevertheless face a major backlash for the actions of the fascistic zionists, a majority of whom are not even Jewish. That majority are imperial colonialists of European descent. All the hysteria about anti-semitism now is manufactured, but in the future it will almost certainly be real.
Trump gave Iran 48 hours to open the Straits of Hormuz, then extended it by five days (to allow for ground forces to arrive in the region), then extended it an extra ten, but Israel took matters into its own hands and bombed Iran’s steel plants. Iran has already said that bombing such infrastructure would be met with the destruction of energy and desalination infrastructure across the Gulf. This is exactly what Israel wants. The war must comtinue, and the various Muslim states must be encouraged to destroy each other. So far Iran has not engaged in mass retaliation. Their responses have always been measured so far, with responses in kind, but not escalation. It remains to be seen if the Israeli attacks continue to provoke regional destruction, and if America can withstand the carnage that’s likely to occur as a result of boots on the ground. At some point, the US may be forced to abandon Israel and the region, at which point Israel may cease to exist. Both aggressor countries appear to have bitten off more than they can chew.
Chris Hedges is absolutely right, and this speech is a tour de force. He discusses the return of overt psychopathy in leadership, where rules exist only for the weak, and the strong take whatever they want in whatever way they want. He calls what’s begun in Gaza and Iran as “a vast worldwide Malthusian correction geared for preparing the world for the winners of globalisation minus the inconvenient noise of the losers”. Ethnocentricism and eugenics are on the rise, with a view to clearing away “human contaminants” through the use of indiscriminant lethal force if necessary. Israel is the prime example of this mentality at the moment, but the US is set to follow suit under the present regime which is increasingly white supremacist. Under such a system, all complexity and nuance are lost, values such as compassion and empathy are pathologised and despised, and brutality is prized.
When Israel says “never again”, they’ve made it clear that never again refers only to Jewish people, and although they don’t say so, neither liberal-minded Jews nor the ultra-orthodox would likely qualify, as neither generally support the fascist apartheid state.
Hedges mentions Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose malign influence has seen a rapid resurgence in Israel. He regarded violence as a Jewish virtue, and considered that ‘subhumans’ were the embodiment of evil and must be eliminated as a condition for the arrival of the Messiah. This train of thought had been suppressed for some time, but is now back in full force. For more on the views of the man, this excellent essay (below) by Sarah Kendzior paints the full picture.
The No World Order
Meir Kahane, Netanyahu, Trump, and the war beyond Iran.
Journalist Katie Halper, who is Jewish herself, also calls out the growing fascism in Israel.
Australia and New Zealand have both ceded any semblance of energy sovereignty in major way, notably in the closure of refineries, but also in the shuttering of productive wells on the spurious grounds of a non-existent climate emergency. Both are now highly dependent on imports, with New Zealand’s dependency at 100%, and both are about to discover the vulnerability inherent in such dependency. New Zealand gets its liauid fuels from refineries in South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore, but they get the raw material through the Straits of Hormuz. None of these countries hold substantial reserves themselves, making exports of what remains very unlikely. Some oil is now passing through the Straits, but only on a case by case basis, and only where the ship is not owned by a party to the war on Iran, only if the cargo is paid for in Chinese yuan, and only if a significant toll is paid. Asian nations will likely be forced to comply, which would be difficult for countries which have ceded much or all of their sovereignty to the American empire, such as South Korea and Japan. Oceania can expect shortages for a long time.
At the moment, fuel in New Zealand is being rationed by price, but soon it will be rationed by quantity, and by intended use under. Traffic light system reminiscent of the covid era. This is not a coincidence, as the pointless and destructive covid lockdowns were a practice run for the imposition of the planned digital control grid. Government will decide what uses of fuel merit access, with emergency services having priority of course. Leisure travel of all kinds would be a thing of the past if the fuel scarcity continues, which seems extremely likely, and freedom of association would go with it.
Unfortunately, use for farming may not receive the priority it deserves, and farmers are likely to be told to restrict their use of machinery. This would amount to a continuation of the ongoing war on farming, particularly animal husbandry. The climate zealots have wanted to eliminate animal products from the food chain in favour of nutritionally deficient veganism for a long time. They may make an exception for Klaus Schwab’s insect products however, and Bill Gates’ inedible and extremely unhealthy fake meat may also be allowed. The World Economic Forum, which dictates policy to our national managers, intends to separate people from the land in order to facilitate surveillance and micro-management of the population in 15 minute cities. Curtailing access to fuel would be a powerful tool to achieve this, which suggests that fuel scarcity may continue beyond the point where it would be necessary.
It would be a very good idea for people to work out carpooling arrangements, and to make sure they have a workable bicycle. Public transport may be available in cities, but service may be reduced. Air travel is likely to disappear entirely, as the WEF has been planning to phase it out for a long time. A lot more thought will have to go into any plans for travel, and any other uses for liquid fuel.
The war is providing cover for the coming financial crisis, where the inverted debt pyramid, collateralised by a woefully small quantity of real assets, is very likely to collapse. This would trigger the Great Taking, and deflationary crash with asset confiscation by owners of the derivatives contracts, who’ve engineered the legal system to grant them ownership in the event of the bankruptcy of clearinghouses. The global elites are attempting to arrange for total control during the contraction, and they plan to weaponise resource access to do it.
The energy aspect is already manifesting, and potentially creating acute crises in many countries in the short term. A fertiliser crunch combined with fuel rationing is going to limit food production this years as well, as a large percentage of the fertiliser supply also travels through the Straits of Hormuz. Together these impacts will create desperate people, and will destabilise the bloated financial system. Massive demand destruction is coming, not because goods are not wanted, but because demand isn’t what you want, but what you can access and pay for. In a world of shortages, high prices for essentials, and sharply curtailed purchasing power, demand destruction is inevitable.
It’s necessary to point out that higher prices are not themselves inflation, but the result of inflation, which is a monetary phenomenon. High prices result from previous money printing combined with the coming shortages of essentials, which will likely be rationed by price, although rationing by quantity is also a possibility if the digital control grid is successfully installed. It remains to be seen if this is possible given the level of potential chaos in the short term. Even if prices fall over time, purchasing power is likely to fall much more quickly than price, meaning that affordability would be significantly worse even at lower prices. Affordability is what matters, because that represents prices in real terms.
Very few people currently understand the likely extent of the coming food crisis. Farmers cannot afford the diesel or the fertiliser, and may not even be able to get fertiliser at any price. The narrow planting window in the northern hemsphere is now, but many are simply not planting. This will lead to empty shelves. The powers that be may well be intending to use the acute shortages if food and fuel as leverage to force the population into digital ID, which is the gateway to the digital prison. This must be resisted if at all possible. If enough people resist, it won’t be possible to impose that digital slavery system.
American pronouncements about the war are all about market manipulation in order to facilitate insider trading on a massive scale. The Epstein class is profiting to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, and there’s zero accountability for widespread criminality. Nothing the regime says is credible.
Colonel Macgregor’s analysis is always worth your time. The man is a paragon of integrity. His description of this conflict as being the old means of war versus modern assymmetric war based on missiles, drones, cyberwarfare etc is accurate. So are the criticality of logistics, and the need for a sound plan grounded in a good understanding of the opponent and the situation, both of which the US regime appears not to understand. All of this is evident in the Ukrainian war, and the lesson is about to repeated in the Gulf.
The war over the Straits of Hormuz is about to amount to a repeat of the battle of Gallipoli from WW1. It could easily become a meatgrinder and an utter strategic disaster. Trump, the chancer, thought the US could win easily in a matter of days, and since he’s continually upped the rhetoric and the risk in the face of failure. A ground offensive would be the culmination of this course of action – an example of the Gambler’s Fallacy.
The Straits of Hormuz: America’s Gallipoli?
When a military operation becomes a suicide mission.
Trump is now bragging about expanding US territory into Greenland, Panama, Canada, Venezuela, Cuba, and much if the rest of the western hemisphere, under the so-called ‘Donroe Doctrine’. This is pure imperial colonialism. International law no longer exists, because the US empire prefers the law of the jungle, where might makes right and the empire can take anything they want from anyone unable to defend it. The current operation in Ecuador, set to spread to the rest if Latin America is called ‘Operation Total Extermination’. Brazil is set to be a target if particular interest since Brazil jailed Trump’s equally corrupt friend, Jair Bolsonaro, for attempting a coup. Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has recently been praising the European colonialist era and indicating that the American regime intends to emulate it rather than manage the decline of the West. Unfortunately for the US, that decline is irreversible. Empires rise and fall, and regaining ‘glory days’ is not an option.
The US is currently engaged in a grotesque episode of collective punishment against Cuba, which Trump claims he will have the ‘honour’ of taking soon. He says he will then be able to do whatever he wants with it. The island has been blockaded to the point where the entire electrical grid has collpased and society can no longer function. All the patients in the ICU in Havana have died due to the power cuts. The complete disregard for human life is sickening. Power and profit are the only motivating factors for the imperial regime.
This is a giant step backwards from the point of view of global stability, and it will result in major increases in military spending by any party that can afford it, along with a high likelihood of nuclear proliferation. Non-western populations are referred to as barbarians, just as European colonialists did for centuries. This can only lead to crashing trust, neo-mercantilism, piracy, and the collapse of the supply chains of the highly integrated global economy. Everyone suffers when trust is destroyed, but those who prepetrate it think they’re above consequences. Unfortunately for them, and everyone else, it won’t work out that way.
It might not get this bad, but the possibility clearly exists. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst if you can. You need to be as independent of centralised life support systems and government as you pssibly can be, because any form of dependence can be weaponised against you in order to get you under control. If you have even a small cushion of the essentials, the odds of you seeing your discount rate skyrocket will bemuch reduced. The discountrate is the extent to which you value the present compared to the future. If you have no resources, all that will matter to you is where your next meal comes from. The future will not exist, which means you would be stuck in state of permanent crisis management under duress, and in such a state people do not think clearly. People in this state tend to look like deer in the headlights, or like headless chickens running around and wrecking things. A cushion if essentials prepared in advance allows you to keep your discount rate under control, so you’re better able to keep a cool head and a constructive mindset under pressure. That can make you part of the solution rather than part of the problem, but it requires action in advance. Your time to act is right now.
Food security rests on many critical supports. The most obvious ones are energy, water, and fertile soil, but while those factors allow food to be produced, much more is required for distribution. Much of the network is now digital, and progress in that direction is accelerating, likely with increasing incorporation of AI. Unfortunately this introduces new and extensive vulnerabilities in a crisis. Hacking and cyber attacks are very real threats, as an American omoany recently discovered (discussed in the video above). They weren’t held for ransom, instead they were digitally deleted completely, and this attack was described as merely a warning of capability. Much larger and more critical entities could be subjected to the same kind of attack, and that could paralyse the entire food distribution network.
The powers that be are trying to create a digital control grid for the dual purposes of imposing an escape-proof rationing system for scarce resources and engineering a full-blown surveillance and control state to essentially enslave humanity in service of the Epstein class. They need leverage in order to force people to accept such a system, which would necessarily begin with digital ID. Limiting access to the essentials of existence, and allowing access only on acceptance of digital personhood would be the most effective way to onboard people quickly, as it would be very difficult for anyone with any kind of dependency on centralised life support systems to resist.
The rationing aspect is understandable. Limits to growth (energy, fresh water, arable land, soil fertility, carrying capacity etc) are non-negotiable, but people will not voluntarily limit consumption, so the powers that be have decided to force the issue. Of course they don’t intend for such limitations to apply to themselves, which undermines the rationale and renders the digital control system profoundly unacceptable to the rest of humanity. It would amount to a plutocracy, with the super-wealthy Epstein class ruling over a gigantic proletariate living at subsistence level.
The even darker side of this initiative is that of population control. Under such a system, only those with some kind of value to the elites would be worth preserving, while the rest would be comsidered ‘useles eaters’. A smaller population would also be more easily subjected to digital control. The obvious way forward for the elites would be to unleash all four horsemen of the apocalypse (so to speak) on the population. We’ve already been subjected to biowarfare with covid and the toxic shots that followed, which have now killed millions worldwide and permanently disabled far more. Covid was also a trial run for population compliance with severe control measures. Now comes war, with the the effect of severely limiting the availability of energy and other resources, combined with digital attacks on the systems required for distribution of remaining resources. It’s also very likely that ‘surplus population’ will be treated as cannon fodder for resource wars. A combination of famine, disease, and war, is exactly what our psychopathic elites have in mind. You might want to read Ayn Rand’s book ‘Atlas Shrugged’ for a fictional look at wealthy members of society shrugging off the rest as a burden.
America is exhibiting typical late stage empire corruption and perfidiousness. The pronouncements emanating from Washington cannot be believed. Every time statements are made they’re later revealed to have been either a market manipulation strategy, to further enrich American oligarchs, or cover for a planned attack. Trust is entirely gone.
Trump recently set an ultimatum – 48 hours to open the Straits of Hormuz or he would reduce Iran’s energy sector to rubble. Iran replied that this would result in retaliation amounting to the destruction of energy and desalination infrastructure in the Gulf countries, which have essentially joined the war on the American side, despite denying it. Before Trump’s deadline expired, he TACOed (ie Trump Always Chickens Out), saying that talks with Iran were productive and that he was giving them an additional five days. Israel then promptly began bombing Iran’s energy infrastructure, with American weapons and covert American support. Iran made it clear that there had never been any talks.
Trump’s wealthy friends made a killing on the resulting market movements in both directions.
Iran has now begun its response, and it won’t be pretty.
Israel is trying to generate maximum conflict between the Sunni Muslim Gulf states and Shia Muslim Iran, in an attempt to get them to destroy each other for Israel’s benefit. The sectarian conflict is reminiscent of the European strife between Catholics and Protestants several hundred years ago. Israel is seeking to depopulate the region of Muslims of all kinds, but lacks the capacity to do it by themselves, hence the need to foment internecine conflict. Israel has also bombed Britain’s Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean, the British base in Cyprus, and oil infrastructure in Oman, trying to blame Iran for each attack. These are false flag attempts to widen the war. Iran lacks missiles that could reach Diego Garcia, but the false flag attack has been used to convince Europeans that Iran has the long range capacity to attack them, with a view to generating public support for the war in Europe. Additional false flags events may well be planned for the US, where support for the war is very low.
Geopolitical analyst Patrick Henningsen was in Iran during the recent protests which were initially peaceful, but then infiltrated by foreign instigators of extreme violence (Mossad, CIA, and MI6). The idea was to prompt the Iranian population to overthrow their own government, but it backfired. The foreign interference was noted by the people, and the result of the violence was much greater unity in the country behind the government. Henningsen’s account of that time should bear much more weight than the propaganda issued by western states trying to paint an entirely false picture of Iran in order to demonise the country and generate support for war. The Trump regime is losing support at a rapid rate and is becoming desperate.
Trump has issued delusional conditions for the end of hostilities:
Israeli media have leaked the 14 points the Trump administration has sent to Iran to end the war. They are laughable. They are the following…
Iran must dismantle its existing nuclear capabilities.
Iran must commit never to pursue nuclear weapons.
There will be no uranium enrichment on Iranian territory.
Iran must hand its stockpile of some 450 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent to the International Atomic Energy Agency in the near future, in a timetable to be agreed.
The Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordo nuclear facilities must be dismantled.
The IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, must be granted full access, transparency, and oversight inside Iran.
Iran must abandon its regional proxy “paradigm.”
Iran must cease the funding, direction, and arming of its regional proxies.
The Strait of Hormuz must remain open and function as a free maritime corridor.
Iran’s missile program must be limited in both range and quantity, with specific thresholds to be determined at a later stage.
Any future use of missiles would be restricted to self-defense.
In return, Iran would benefit as follows:
Iran would receive a full lifting of sanctions imposed by the international community.
The US would assist Iran in advancing its civilian nuclear program, including electricity generation at the Bushehr nuclear plant.
The so-called “snapback” mechanism, which allows for the automatic reimposition of sanctions if Iran fails to comply, would be removed.
In public comments, Iranian officials have dismissed the idea that Trump is genuine about diplomacy and have described his comments as an effort to manipulate global oil prices, a view that was reaffirmed on Tuesday by Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who the US is reportedly seeking to hold talks with that would be led by Vice President JD Vance.
America has created a new Libyan model. Nations like Iran will never sit with the United States again. But I’m not surprised. This was all predictable.
Needless to say, none of this will be happening. In response, Israel claimed that the conclusion of the conflict would be an internal military decision not to be dictated by Washington. In their view, regime change is insufficient. They want Iran to be completely destroyed, like Syria, so it can be balkanised and controlled by Greater Israel. This is the goal, but this is exceptionally unlikely.
Iran has now laid out its own conditions for the end of the conflict:
The six conditions outlined by the Iranian official represent a comprehensive restructuring of the conflict’s political and security framework.
First, Iran demands binding guarantees that war will not be repeated, signaling a rejection of temporary or symbolic ceasefire arrangements.
Second, Tehran calls for the closure of US military bases across the region, a demand that directly challenges the broader American military presence in West Asia.
Third, Iran insists that the aggressors pay compensation for damages inflicted during the war.
Fourth, it calls for an end to all ongoing wars across regional fronts, positioning the current confrontation within a wider regional context rather than an isolated conflict.
Fifth, Tehran seeks the establishment of a new legal regime governing the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global energy artery over which Iran holds strategic influence.
Sixth, the Iranian demand extends into the media sphere, calling for the prosecution and extradition of individuals affiliated with what it describes as hostile media operations targeting Iran.
Taken together, these conditions go far beyond conventional ceasefire terms, reflecting an attempt to redefine not only the outcome of the current war but also the regional order that underpins it.
There is clearly no overlap between positions of the beligerents, meaning that this war is likely to continue for a prolonged period. Iran is vastly better positioned for a long war of attrition. All it has to do is not to lose, whereas the US/Israeli forces need an overwhelming victory. Considering that their air defence capability is virtually exhausted even before Iran begins to use its most advanced weaponry, and boots on the ground can only result in enormous casualties, such a victory is exceptionally unlikely.
