Truth is the first casualty of war

Professor Marandi (Tehran) to Piers Morgan: 

Piers, allow me to offer some advice. I'm not going to debate who is right or wrong – Russia or Ukraine – right now. That's not the point. I simply want to say that your media outlets have been misleading the public for two years, constantly claiming that Ukraine is winning. And then suddenly, it turns out that it is on the verge of collapse. Imposing false narratives ultimately becomes a disaster for yourselves – for the people of England, Europe, and America. Your endless wars, which are based on these false narratives and disinformation, create massive waves of refugees that are overwhelming your own countries. And all of this is happening because of your own actions.



John Mearsheimer: 

The Russians went to enormous lengths to try to negotiate with the West to avoid a war. The Russians were not interested in war. This is perfectly clear if you look at the historical record for those three months before the war started. Nevertheless, the West had zero interest in negotiating with the Russians to make sure that a war did not break out over Ukraine. Just look at the historical record. You'll find hardly any evidence that the West, which believed the Russians might attack, many people in the West thought there was a good chance that the Russians would attack, did virtually nothing to prevent a war. Here, I'm talking mainly about the United States.



Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, Aug 15, 2025: 

The percentage of child dead in the Ukrainian conflict is 0.3%. Zero point three per cent. The percentage of child dead in the Gaza conflict is 37.7%. Thirty seven point seven per cent. In a single statistic, there you have the difference between a war and a genocide.

Retired Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani

“The long two-thousand-year record of Chinese history clearly shows that China is fundamentally unlike America as it is reluctant to use the military option first. It is also fundamentally different from America in another regard. It does not believe that it has a “universal” mission to promote Chinese civilization and encourage everyone else in humanity to emulate it.”
Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy

The worst case of imposter syndrome in history

"In order to have a negotiated end, the Iranian side is going to require President Trump to give up some big things upfront, before Iran does anything, and I can’t see the president doing that. He would have to acknowledge that we had lost, by submitting to Iranian demands for giving things like lifting sanctions and releasing frozen funds BEFORE Iran does anything. I just can’t see him agreeing to that. But what he can do, is just claim that we have inflicted so much harm on Iran, that it will “take decades to recover,” and therefore we just walk away. Claiming we succeeded when we didn’t, and just walking away won’t change the reality, but it will open the SOH to traffic, and yes, that will mean Iran will be in control of the SOH and be charging a fee indefinitely. But the SOH will be open, and oil and gas, and all the derivatives will start to flow again – and most of all, we will avoid the catastrophic outcome of the exchange of devastating attacks on oil and gas infrastructure on all sides. President Trump needs to take care of this last this opportunity, because it may be the last chance to avoid disaster."

Daniel Davis an hour ago

Journalist: "What have you done with the $13 billion you've taken from Venezuela?" 

Trump: "I think we've taken even more than that, we've paid for the war many times over, and that will happen with Iran also."

Today Alastair Crooke says 'America has effectively lost the war with Iran' and quotes three Israelis

'Former IDF Ombudsman Maj. Gen. Yitzak Brik predicts (Ma’ariv, 26 July) that the crisis engulfing the Israeli intercept inventory “is only the prelude to the catastrophe that is looming over us”.

'"In the coming wars with Iran, the threat will increase tenfold to the point of a complete loss of the ability to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles. These missiles are expected to hit us: in population centers, strategic targets, production and economic infrastructure, science and technology institutes, educational institutions, hospitals and vital industries, and completely crush us”.'

Tucker Carlson and Justin Trudeau

"We just turned Iran into a global power, and it will remain a global power for the rest of our lives, at least."

Tucker Carlson yesterday.

"Netanyahu says he defends Western civilisation. No. He’s its enemy — literally its main enemy." Tucker Carlson on the Shawn Ryan Show, November 24 2025

[America has become an enemy of the West, exactly what Trump wanted to change but has made worse.] 

"He [Netanyahu]’s not the only world leader who’s evil and destructive by the way again, but he is. And he’s hurting the United States and he’s destroying his own country. And I think he imperils the world. Okay, so I think that clearly they’re going to try and blow up Al Aqsa Mosque, I believe that, on the Temple Mount to build a third temple, and then you’ve got global war." Tucker Carlson talking to Elizabeth Lane, October 16 2025

“We all know people who are a little hesitant (about vaccination), and we’re going to try and convince them, but there are also people who are fiercely opposed to vaccination; who don’t believe in science, who are often misogynists, who are often racist as well … There, one must make a choice as a national leader, do we tolerate these people?”

Justin Trudeau during a French-language interview on the Quebec talk show La Semaine des 4 Julie on September 16, 2021.  I didn't see this back then.

People often forget that we were given Palestine by the League of Nations in trust for her people, meaning the Arab inhabitants

Alan Dershowitz, lawyer to OJ Simpson, Epstein and Trump, on Piers Morgan's show:

“Will you at least admit that Iran murdered, in cold blood, as many as 50,000 innocent protesters? And would you admit, if that’s true, that that comes close to the genocide? That anything that Israel is confused of doing in self-defense after its people were raped, kidnapped, murdered on October 7th, would you at least admit that the Iranian regime has killed many, many, many thousands of people?”

'Ukraine War Narrative collapses. Europe Starts Panicking.'

Here's a good Neutrality Studies podcast in which former British diplomat Ian Proud (in Moscow 2014-2019) talks to Pascal Lottez.

It's worth hearing. I agree with both these men.

Mr Proud points out that European leaders have completely abandoned real diplomacy, demanding an unconditional Russian ceasefire while refusing to talk directly to Russia or address her long-standing concerns—such as Ukraine's NATO ambitions. 

The US 5th fleet is an Iranian hostage. America's humiliation in Iran 'empowers China and the BRICS forever'

Former British spy Alastair Crooke delivers a blunt assessment of the Iran conflict on Daniel Davis's YouTube podcast Deep Dive. I thought this summary on X deserved quoting in full.




What was long treated as unchallengeable American military power has been exposed as brittle and limited. The consequences reach far beyond the region and are already strengthening the rising influence of BRICS.




THE SHREDDED US STANDING

➡️ This war is shredding the standing of the US military presence.

➡️ It was thought to be invulnerable, unable to be contested or attacked. That has all been proved wrong.

The Trump Administration is an idiotocracy, as an insider told Michael Wolff

As all informed observers knew except Donald Trump, the US does not have enough missiles. 

It therefore has had to pause its agression against Iran. 

The Pakistanis are trying to get Iran to agree a ceasefire, I presume at the USA's request. 

I hope Iran does not fall for this ruse again.

US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz admits on TV that the weapons stockpiles are heavily depleted but he blames Biden for that.

“We have to take a step back here. A lot of our stockpiles were depleted because of Biden."

He then says they are not depleted but he also adds that people leaking this nonsense deserve to be in jail.

It's like a black comedy film except it is not funny.

Quotations

"We're seeing the ending of an era, not a decline, but an abrupt change. And this change is not stemming from without: The ending of the American power did not result from any foreign civil war or other war against American dominance. The end came from the United States itself." Professor Michael Hudson

"Nobody can take us back to the 1970s, but for millions it was a time of plentiful jobs, affordable housing and safe streets. The Tories shouldn’t knock it." Peter Hitchens (Conservatives accuse the current and last Labour Prime Ministers of wanting to take Great Britain back to the 1970s). 

"Like love, faith is also, more often than not, a mess-making force." Lamorna Ash

“Globalisation is all about wealth. It knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Without borders the world will become – is visibly becoming – a howling desert of traffic fumes, plastic and concrete, where nowhere is home and the only language is money.” Peter Hitchens

Samuel Ramani: Trump can stop the war now. He’s already won

'While the US’s next steps remain unclear, Trump could end the war today and credibly claim victory. Although the Islamic Republic remains in place, its grip on power has eroded and Iran’s military capabilities have been severely degraded. After years of one-sided nuclear negotiations and passivity in the face of Iranian regime repression, Trump has restored deterrence and asserted American power in a way that will resonate with other adversaries.'

Dr Samuel Ramani wrote this in the Daily Telegraph on 10 March 2026 when it was already clear to people who listened to Max Blumenthal, Professor Marandi or Douglas Macgregor that it was very wrong. 

Almost the whole of Iran is now united, the government was not so strong for decades and American power is at last in what could be steep decline. 

These things are surprising but clear and it is also surprising but clear to most people that American decline is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

"After years of one-sided nuclear negotiations" - Obama's nuclear deal was a good one and Trump tore it up saying he could get a better one and couldn't. 

"And PASSIVITY in the face of Iranian regime repression" - what business is it of America's on the other side of the world - or any foreign country - to be active if the Iranian government represses Iranians? 

Hezbollah is not passive when Israel attacks Lebanon - they fight, which is their business since they are Lebanese and is within international law - but people in high places in London call them terrorists.

Dr Ramani continues to spill out propaganda about Iran and Russia. 

He teaches Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and he contributes regularly to The Washington Post, the BBC World Service, Al Jazeera and CNN.

People who have power take this man seriously. 

The future elite at Oxford do. 

Everything else at Oxford is woke but Politics and International Relations sounds as if it is taught from the point of view of Anglo-American governments. 

But this is not in fact as contradictory as it sounds at first - the Anglo-American empire is woke. 

The head of MI6 complains about lack of LGBQ rights in Russia.

Woke is what we are if not fighting then paying Ukrainians to fight for 

Please stop reading the Daily Telegraph or Washington Post or believing the BBC or CNN, if you do.

Al Jazeera is better by some way but equally biassed against Iran, the Houthis and the Shia.

Chas Freeman on the American sphere of influence, a more subtle form of dominance than an empire

The former US Ambassador to KSA is a very acute analyst. This is from a talk he gave to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University on 2 April 2016. He explained ten years ago what is happening today.

Americans like to forget we ever had an empire or to claim that, if we did, we never really wanted one. But the momentum of Manifest Destiny made us an imperial power. It carried us well beyond the shores of the continent we seized from its original aboriginal and Mexican owners. The Monroe Doctrine proclaimed an American sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere. But the American empire was never limited to that sphere.

In 1854, the United States deployed U.S. Marines to China and Japan, where they imposed our first treaty ports. Somewhat like Guantánamo, these were places in foreign countries where our law, not theirs, prevailed, whether they liked it or not. Also in 1854, U.S. gunboats began to sail up and down the Yangtze River (the jugular vein of China), a practice that ended only in 1941, when Japan as well as the Chinese went after us.

Lawrence Wilkerson doesn't think the Jewish state will survive in the long term

'I think from every indication that I have, there is no more division in Iran. It is wrong to say that there are hardliners, moderates, soft ones, whatever. There is no IRGC. There is no Iranian military. There is no Guardian Council. There is no Ayatollah. There is no Majlis. They are one. They are Persia, if you will. And they are 93 million strong, being killed every day by us in war crime after war crime after war crime, about which Hegseth said nothing. But they are resolute.


'And here’s what I said earlier. With the help of a very sophisticated Chinese satellite, and probably backups from Russia, Iran has the capability to deliver some of the most sophisticated ballistic missiles in the world on targets throughout the region at their direction. In other words, you have a first list of targets that they have hit now. You have a second list of targets that they have hit a number of. And then you have a third list, which they’re just starting on. I think they have a fourth and a fifth list, and I think those are the lists that will throw the world into global depression.

Quotations

Elon Musk: 

Money won't matter in 2036. What do you want money for? You want money for goods and services: food, housing, transport, entertainment. If robots and AI are providing more goods and services than any human could possibly consume, what do you need money for in that case?

Brian Berletic:

India... has maintained a balancing act between West and East - but of course the US will settle for nothing less than full submission and servitude.

What are the PRIMARY tools the US uses to change the direction of a targeted nation's policies? Of course - "color revolution." 

Ray McGovern's last Judging Freedom podcast

Ray McGovern, 86, a very loveable former CIA man, and another former CIA man of a much more recent vintage, Joe Kent, agree that 99.44 percent of the intelligence the US receives about Iranian nuclear capacity comes from the Israelis 'and this was the same with Iraq'. 

Israel invented fears of an Iranian bomb in the 1990s to keep the US in the region. 

I doubt they believed in the Iranian nuclear weapons threat until the current war, but it's probably going to be a self fulfilling prophecy now.

I have seen several former intelligence officers say Israel is the main reason the US invaded Iraq and that this has been hidden since the consequences were what they were.

Ed and David Miliband are not the first brothers to be British Foreign Secretary

Ed and David Miliband are not the first brothers to be British Foreign Secretary

The Marquess Wellesley and his younger brother the Duke of Wellington both were, the latter very briefly. He held all principal ministerial offices concurrently for three weeks in November–December 1834 while the country waited for Sir Robert Peel to return from Italy, where he was on holiday, and then remained Foreign Secretary under Peel till the government collapsed in April 1835.

Sir Austen Chamberlain and his half brother Neville were both Chancellor of the Exchequer and both leaders of the Conservative and Unionist Party (both were Liberal Unionists originally).

Edward and Oliver Stanley were both First Lord of the Admiralty.

Ed Miliband in his first remarks overseas as Foreign Secretary at ASEAN condemned Russia's "aggression" but not the USA's or Israel's, and spoke vaguely of the "suffering" of the Palestinians. 

I suppose Great Britain is not a free agent but has to toe the American line. How different things were when Wellington or Wellesley were Foreign Secretary.

Avoid the words terrorism and genocide

I try to avoid the words genocide and terrorism and wish everyone would. The word terrorism is impossible to define - the word genocide has a definition but discussing it changes the subject from what happened to a legal dispute. I read a left-wing historian recently saying the word genocide is used for polemical purposes not for spreading understanding. The word holocaust on the other hand means a burnt sacrifice so that word is straightforward.

My country is going to war on the wrong side on the orders of foreign governments and the advice of the deep state

Of course the new British cabinet has to do what it's told.

Israel apparently is going to take part in what may be a big and disastrous war. We as so often will be on the wrong side. Meanwhile the British Chief Rabbi wants it to be illegal to wish death on the IDF though not on the IRGC.

Achieving immortality

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments 

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.

Shakespeare's Sonnet LV  

Europe cannot afford to have Russia as an enemy, nor China, nor Iran

Dissident opinions on the internet are the shaft of sunlight in the dungeon we inhabit.

The European Council and the rest of the international deep state wants to block the light.

I recommend this podcast by Ian Proud former senior British diplomat in Moscow.

He points out that NATO is not a defensive organisation, something proven by the fact that member states account for 52% of total global military spending, a proportion that will increase.

Ed the Red

Ed Miliband as Foreign Secretary is an inspired appointment.

It stops his net zero reign of terror, gives us a Foreign Secretary who prevented the UK intervening militarily in Syria because of dodgy allegations and he is one of the very few senior British politicians left who has been outspokenly critical of Israel.

The fact that Stephen Pollard and the Daily Telegraph are furious is reassuring.

Better not to have redbrick Prime Ministers in future?

Mr Burnham is only the 15th Cambridge Prime Minister and the first to kiss hands since Stanley Baldwin who first did so 103 years ago and was one of the best ones.

31 went to Oxford. 8 went to Scotch universities, 2 to European ones and one, the unlamented Sir Keir Starmer, to Leeds. 

Better stick to Oxbridge and Scotland in future?

Lloyd George and Churchill didn't go to university. An equally great or greater one, Pitt the Younger, went to Cambridge at 13.

The new PM read English which is a very much better preparation than PPE or Law. In an age when so many of the people who rule us have no cilture he has read poetry. 

I expect he'll be terrible but what a pleasure to see the back of the mendacious, murderous Mendelson-McSweeney protégé Starmer.

I suspect we're really ruled by the international deep state and the secret services whichever party is in power.

The new Prime Minister is a cradle Catholic who said he is not particularly religious. He is the first Catholic Prime Minister unless you count Boris, who was baptised a Catholic for some reason but brought up vaguely Church of England.

Eyeless in Gaza

 

Unfortunately very many children are buried under the rubble whose names are known only to God.

Remember that America financed this and the RAF lent assistance.

Alon Mizrahi

@alon_mizrahi

You may not believe it, but 95% of Israeli Jews have absolutely mo ides what they have done wrong. In their book, they are hated because of rampent antisemitism. And they really genuinely believe it. It's a clinically insane aociety

It is worse than a crime; it is a blunder. America is violent, lawless and inept

"We just had no military strategy for winning against Vietnam. We had no military strategy for winning in Afghanistan. We had no military strategy for winning in Iraq and we have no military strategy for winning here. But the point is that once you get into these things, it's very hard to get out. No question. And you look for ways to escalate and it's kind of like a wing and a prayer. You know, maybe something will happen that we don't foresee. And if we just double down, maybe, you know, we'll be lucky." John Mearsheimer yesterday talking to Chris Hedges

Quotations

"All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The fool, with all his other faults, has this also, he is always getting ready to live."
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius

"We like someone because. We love someone although."
Henry de Montherlant

"You are a slave of what you need in your soul. The most masculine man needs women, and he is consequently their slave. Become a woman yourself, and you will be saved from slavery to woman….It is good for you once to put on women’s clothes: people will laugh at you, but through becoming a woman you attain freedom from women and their tyranny. The acceptance of femininity leads to completion. The same is valid for the woman who accepts her masculinity."
Carl Jung, The Red Book 

Fox News: "What happens to Ukraine if it does not receive the help it needs?"
Lech Walesa: "It won't just be Ukraine that is affected. The United States will be in danger. Russia wants to attack the U.S. Right now it's too weak to do so, but if it is let to defeat Ukraine, the U.S. will be next. So, it is in the interest of us all, including the U.S., to deal with Russia once and for all." 

February 22, 2024

The hardest part of a 14 day war is the first 140 days

Iranians and Americans see deaths differently. The Americans kill civilians without qualm but do not have the fortitude to sustain losses on their side whereas with Iranians it's the other way around.

2 US servicemen were killed in Jordan by Iranian missiles, at least 3 to 5 more soldiers aboard the medical evacuation flights will ‘probably not make it’ and there are 15 more soldiers with life-threatening, very severe injuries whose fate is also still unclear. I hope American public opinion forces an end to this unprovoked and unnecessary war. 

Americans do not take much interest in the foreigners they kill but they do dislike their own soldiers dying, though the price of petrol which they call gas matters to them more and therefore to their politicians.

Meanwhile Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Chief of Staff to Colin Powell at the US State Department has said this:

‘We do not want anybody to remember the Palestinians as they disappear into that dark night underground under rubble, to be soon turned into whatever it is Jared Kushner and his boys have planned for them.

'But we've all forgotten about that. And that is fundamentally evil that we have done that.

'This is not the equivalent of Hitler's Holocaust, but it's very close. And if it keeps on at the present rate, and it really is 250,000–300,000 Palestinians under that rubble, and I think Ralph Nader's right about that, I think it is, this could match anything that's happened in the last century….'

British people are siding with the enemy

From a Daily Telegraph story.

"Not only would 24 per cent apparently side with hostile foreign actors [China, Russia, Iran], but 61 per cent appear to believe that the contract between citizens and the state is “broken”, largely because politicians fail to deliver on their promises. This disillusionment cuts across age, ethnicity and socio-economic status. Almost a third are open to the view that non-white people can never be as English, Scottish or Welsh as white people."

Reminder: the United Kingdom is not at war with China, Russia or Iran.

Britain has no political interests in the Far East, the Middle East or even, come to that, Ukraine beyond wanting a durable peace and the Strait of Hormuz reopened. 

Reminder: the Strait was open before the USA attacked Iran, it became a war zone and Lloyds of London closed it.

One reason for wanting NATO dissolved in 1992 as was said at the time was that it would expose Europe and Canada to getting involved in American adventures.