World turned upside down

In a world gone mad few things are any longer incredible but this is.

Report claims senior Pentagon officials, including Elbridge Colby, unvited ed the Papal Nuncio Cardinal Christophe Pierre and warned the US can act however it wants and mentioned the “Avignon Papacy.”  

When the popes were in exile at Avignon  their sovereignty  was curtailed by military pressure from the French kings. 

Vatican sources say it was sufficiently serious that the planned US visit by the Pope is cancelled. 

Liviu Mihaiu, one of Romania's most respected writers and intellectuals, just posted this on Facebook. I agree with what Professor Mohammad Marandi says here . 

He has a habit of being right. I must start watching him regularly.  He correctly predicted 3 or 4 days in how the Iranian war would pan out.

Deb Finkle is a Canadian Communist and probably Jewish. I agree with her here.

I also agree with Ann Coulter here. She was once devoted to Trump. I mentioned these points here before, with reference to Biden financing Netanyahu's holocaust in Gaza. Reagan or Carter would not have done this and Kennedy or Eisenhower absolutely wouldn't have done so.

<Reagan shows why you need a man of high moral character in the White House.

NYT, Aug 13, 1982, REAGAN DEMANDS END TO ATTACKS IN A BLUNT TELEPHONE CALL TO BEGIN

WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 - President Reagan expressed ''outrage'' to Prime Minister Menachem Begin today over Israel's latest bombing raids in west Beirut, saying the attacks had resulted in ''needless destruction and bloodshed.''..

Larry Speakes, the deputy White House press secretary, said Mr. Reagan had been ''shocked'' by the Israeli attacks ... 

''The President expressed his outrage over this latest round of massive military action,'' ... 

Mr. Speakes, asked whether Mr. Reagan had shouted at the Prime Minister, declined to comment. 

American officials - including, apparently, Mr. Reagan - were stunned by not only the scale of the Israeli air attacks but also the possibility that Mr. Habib's peace proposals could fall apart because of them.

Asked if Mr. Reagan had threatened to suspend American arms aid or take other retaliation, Mr. Speakes replied, ''I won't discuss that.''>

This extraordinary moment in history

Donald Trump has accused Iran of behaving "dishonourably". I am not making this up.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia says Iran bombed the East-West pipeline hours before the ceasefire was agreed. This stops KSA exporting oil without the Houthis blocking the Red Sea. Iran is playing her hand brilliantly.

David Rohde: 

“Iran offered to give away ALL of its ENRICHED URANIUM during the recent peace talks. Hours later the U.S. started dropping bombs.”

Trista Parsi:

<WOW!

Spain's Sanchez is on another level. While most European leaders only apply international law in Ukraine, ignoring it in Gaza and Lebanon, and even stating that it doesn't apply to Iran, Sanchez sticks true to principles and calls for the IMMEDIATE ARREST of Netanyahu.

"Netanyahu launched the worst possible unjustified attack against Lebanon. His contempt for life and international law is intolerable. He is a criminal that must be arrested immediately.”>

I blame  the media for being accomplices to war crimes and illegal wars.

BBC on Israel’s massacres

BBC whitewashing Israel’s killing yesterday of more than 250 civilians in Lebanon by flattening entire neighbourhoods:

“Israel says it hit more than 100 command centres and military sites in 10 minutes…”

I am sick of BBC bias. It's the British equivalent of RT, the mouthpiece of the British establishment. You see the same thing with Russia, China, Viktor Orban, immigration, abortion, feminism, climate change and on and on.

Peace in our time? It looks like Trump will invent a victory and leave, giving Iran the things she asks for. At least let's hope so

A disturbing number of Britons, it seems, would gladly see the survival of the world’s worst regime. So wrote Jake Wallis Simons a couple of weeks ago in the very pro-Israel Daily Telegraph. I am one of them because he was talking about Iran (why is it Iran has a regime and Egypt a government?) although I by no means think that it has the world's worst regime, not by a country mile.

I can think of others worse.

I am not sure America isn't one of them.

I said yesterday that peace was impossible. I saw no reason why Iran would ever accept a ceasefire because it would only allow her enemies to rearm and prepare for a fresh assault.

That is still my position but we were all wrong when we accused Trump of lying about negotiating with Iran. In some way he was talking to Tehran.

Now genuine negotiations based on the maximalist demands of Iran, which by the way seem to be very reasonable, are going to start and meanwhile the Strait of Hormuz is going to be reopened with certain conditions and under the control of Iran (as it was until the British wrested control from the Shah of Persia in the 18th century).

I wrote yesterday that Trump and Netanyahu should just give up but they won't but it looks like I was wrong. It looks like this might be exactly what they're going to do, which would of course bring peace.

Netanyahu desperately wants peace not to break out and he may be cunning enough to prevent it, but I doubt it.

Trump was in a locked room and now he has found a key.

Let none of us forgive him or forget that this terrible war is certainly the fault of of Donald Trump and has enormously damaged American interests and standing in the world.

But let us remember that it is much more the fault of Benjamin Netanyahu.

He is not America's friend. He is not the friend of anybody apart from Israel and what he calls the diaspora Jews.

Why should he be? Countries do not have friends.

The two countries which seemed to me to have behaved in a very civilised and moral way throughout the last few years when it comes to diplomacy, though certainly not in their domestic policy, are China and Iran.

I note that China is said to have persuaded Iran to talk to the American aggressor.

An (anti-Zionist, of course) synagogue in Tehran was completely destroyed by the Israelis, who remarkably then issued their first apology since they started the war

Chinese propaganda, as seen from Germany

 

Peace is impossible in the 3rd Gulf War - it would give the US and Israel time to prepare a new war. Peace is impossible in Ukraine too. China will not attack Taiwan but enjoy the spectacle.

 

I have been saying on this blog for many years that America is the great danger to peace and that Great Britain should if not leave then quietly quit NATO. I said NATO exists to defend its members from the dangers created by belonging to NATO and is useless. My opinions seemed eccentric but they don't seem unusual now. I have also been saying that had Iran an atom bomb that would preserve peace in the Middle East. That looks pretty undeniable now too. Apart from the mistake of not developing the bomb the Iranians made another big mistake last year in agreeing a ceasefire with the Americans and Israelis which their enemies used to buy time to organise the fake regime change operation at the beginning of this year and then to launch this war.

Netanyahu and Trump should just give up but that would leave Iran in charge of the Strait of Hormuz and as the clear winner so that will not happen.

Iran has informed regional states that if Iranian energy infrastructure is struck, the entire region will be plunged into darkness and all options are on the table.

The United States and Israel have a set of targets lined up in Iran designed to cripple the country’s economy and ensure the regime’s recovery from this war is “long and painful,” with Israel awaiting authorisation from Washington this week to begin striking energy facilities across Iran, officials tell The New York Times.

When Ayatollah Khomeini first came along talking about America as the Great Satan it found a certain chord in my reactionary teenage breast. (And us as the Little Satan felt like a compliment to my miserable island). Now I see Candace Owens, America's most popular media personality, just said that satanic Zionists occupy the White House. 

"When we’re kids we play cops and robbers, and watch cartoons about evil criminals being stopped by virtuous crime fighters. Then when we mature we learn that all the most evil people are operating within the laws of our nation, and nobody ever sends them to jail." Caitlin Johnstone

The Americans are deliberately bombing schools and hospitals

Al Jazeera confirms the US and Israel have bombed over 760 schools and 350 health centres in Iran.

I have listened on podcasts to more than one American veteran say this is what the Americans always do. I think Scott Ritter was one but am not sure. 

John Mearsheimer has said, "From 1971 to 2022, America killed 38 million people. They are the origin of terrorism. And this is the very same U.S. that now wants to ‘liberate’ Iran.”

She is arguing for killing Iranian and Arab children on religious grounds

Israeli analyst Orit Perlov who works for a think tank called the Institute of National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, felt happy posted this X feed on Sunday 22 March 2026 but later took it down.

<Please replace the state approach with a cruel religious approach. Instead of a power plant strike, a plague of the firstborn – tomorrow evening, eliminate the children of Vahidi, Araghchi, and Ghalibaf.

Why is the BBC trying to make us care about a downed American airman?

 

We are finished - unless we see that America is now the threat to world peace. I can only see one chance.

Trump who is clearly mentally unfit for his or any job boasted the day before yesterday about having killed 88 Iranian leaders. It was about 49 to start with.

The European countries, except for Russia and Belarus, have offered no criticism of this unprovoked, illegal murder spree or the bombing of 60 schools and I forget how many hospitals (America always does this sort of thing) but Ursula von der Leyen says with a solemn face that Iran’s actions are putting global economic stability at risk, which indeed they do.

She criticises Iran for fighting back.

The EU and most of Nato have no moral authority to condemn anything because they condemn Russian but not American war crimes and illegal wars.

Starting an illegal war is the greatest of war crimes, it was said at the Nuremburg tribunal. The Nuremburg tribunal was a kangaroo court but in a world that can't stop talking about the Second World War its rulings should be important - but no, war crimes are fine for the leaders of America's vassals and for the Western media.

Meanwhile 'Europe' makes no attempt to talk to Iran or Russia or chart a foreign policy of its own.

The European Union will I hope be fatally wounded by these wars though its death will be very long drawn out.

It has failed to make Europe powerful or richer or independent or able to defend itself from America or Russia or, the most important thing, the invasion by illegal immigrants that is going to make the continent part of the Maghreb, thus fulfilling the predictions of Neagu Djuvara and Bernard Lewis.

It has concentrated instead on restricting innumerable freedoms while enforcing free movement of people.

Stalin did not say ask "How many divisions does the Pope have?", but the Pope is important and so is moral authority.

Great Britain, Romania, most of Europe have none any more.

I do not see how it can be recovered unless Europe firmly condemns America.

That would be the end of Nato but Nato was obsolete by 1991 and is now a body without a head.

This war could continue as long as the Korean war and that war has never ended.

What I'd like to happen is for the world to recognise the Strait of Hormuz as run by Iran, just as the Bosphorus is run by Turkey under the Montreux Convention, and for all countries to use it on Iran's terms - which to start with might mean transporting oil bought in yuan and condemning US war crimes.

Iran in return would stop her war on the USA and its proxies.

Could that be a durable peace?

Yes if Europeans thought like say Metternich or Bismarck.

It would mean the end of the American empire in the Eastern hemisphere, which would be a good thing for everybody except MBS and his gangsters, even America, even Israel.

Remember, European and the G7 countries are in conflict with Iran, Russia and even China solely because of America. 

I was a supporter of Trump until he changed -the murder of people on the ship in the Caribbean justified by obvious lies was probably the turning point - or the threats to Panama, Canada and Greenland - though piracy ie arresting ships breaking US sanctions should have opened my eyes. 

I had hoped he would be the peace president, end the war in Ukraine and betray Netanyahu. Instead...... 

Of course I was delighted that the Houthis withstood his attack on them. 

Left: President Trump, "Regime change (in Iran) was not our goal"

Right: President Trump, "But we also want regime change (in Iran)"

These two speeches were on the same day 🤷‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/fUwwYvyl9b

— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) April 2, 2026

The Iranian President's Letter to the People of the United States: Iran Has Never Initiated a War

Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian's Letter to the People of the United States: Iran Has Never Initiated a War

Addressed to the people of the United States and all those who, amidst a flood of distortions and fabricated narratives, continue to seek the truth and hope for a better life:

Iran is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in human history. Despite its historical and geographical advantages over different eras, Iran has never chosen the path of aggression, expansionism, colonialism, or domination in its modern history.

Even after enduring occupation, invasion, and continuous pressure from global powers, and despite having military superiority over many of its neighbors, Iran has never been the initiator of war; yet it has firmly and courageously repelled aggressors.

The people of Iran bear no hostility toward other nations, including the people of the United States, Europe, or neighbouring countries. Iranians have historically distinguished between governments and the people they govern, even when facing repeated foreign interventions and pressures. This is a deeply rooted principle in Iranian culture and collective conscience, not a temporary political stance.

Chas Freeman: The era of Western dominance that started in 1492 is over

Chas Freeman was US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Nixon's senior translator in Peking. He said yesterday in this podcast that I highly recommend that the era of European and then American dominance of the world, which began in 1492, is now over.

 

He also said:

We don't know whether this war will end.



How long will the American public be willing to arm Israel for wars that are either genocidal or utterly illegal, purposeless and which draw the United States into them? I don't know.

I think the Greeks are responsible for many good things but one of the things they did was decide that there was an Asia across the Bosphorus. You know people who lived in Eurasia didn't know that they were Asian. They thought they were Turks or they thought they were Mongols or they were Chinese or they were Indians or something like that or Russians perhaps but no they're Asians. So what is happening is that European separation from the rest of Eurasia I think is in fact as you suggest becoming untenable in the new era. If you look at European history the greatest mistake - well let's go back to 1815 the Congress of Vienna which brought an end to the the Napoleonic war once and for all. That Congress did something very wise. They reached out to the enemy, France, revolutionary France and they reintegrated it into the councils of Europe so that Europe became governed by a group of countries that practiced balance of power that kept the peace for a century until 1914. In 1919 the Treaty of Versailles excluded two of Europe's great powers from any role in governing Europe: Germany which was punished for its war and the Soviet Union the successor state to Russia which was probably happy to be excluded but nonetheless was. Then the consequence of that were World War II and the consequence of World War II  was the cold war. All of this stems from the exclusion of Russia, a European great power from any role in determining European affairs. This is not tenable.

Jewish troops will be looking for Muslims hidden in the attics of Christians. Let that sink in. https://t.co/OwfZYKy0Lj

— Hend Amry (@LibyaLiberty) April 2, 2026

Israeli authorities confess they are singling out the Shi'ite Lebanese population for destruction.

This is textbook ethnic cleansing, described as "Israel's message" by the @nytimes. pic.twitter.com/UcbNQQjcEE

— Zachary Foster (@_ZachFoster) April 1, 2026

Anthony Scaramucci 1 hour ago on X

Let me walk you through what happened one hour before Trump announced the five day moratorium on Iran strikes.

$1.5 billion in notional S&P E-mini futures contracts. Four to six times normal activity.

One hour before the announcement.

Simultaneously, $192 million in crude oil futures purchased at the same time.

They made between $300 and $400 million dollars off those trades.

Trump claimed he spoke to an Iranian official to negotiate the moratorium.

The Iranians said that person doesn't exist and the conversation never happened.

This is not the first time.

It has happened multiple times. He says something. The trade goes on. He says another thing. The market moves.

But whatever you call it — they are laughing at you and they are laughing at me while they do it.

Hunter Biden sold a painting and Washington lost its mind.

These people are making hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars trading on information that only exists inside the most powerful office in the world.

I think we are dramatically underreporting how much money is actually being made here.

This isn't politics anymore.

This is a financial operation running out of the White House.

Alan MacLeod

@AlanRMacLeod

·

It's incredible watching the New York Times having to describe ethnic cleansing without ever using the phrase.

"We're seeing the ending of an era, not a decline but an abrupt change."

I have been saying on this blog for a long time that America is the great threat to world peace, that Biden and now Trump are war criminals and Nato a danger to its members. 

Starting with the failed regime change operation in January in Iran, which the media misreported as a spontaneous uprising in which 30,000 people were murdered by an evil regime, things became much clearer for me.

I presume huge numbers of people everywhere find to their surprise that they want Iran to win. However, it is being seriously suggested that expressing support for Iran in the UK should be made a crime, I presume punishable by prison for 14 years like expressing pro-Hamas opinions. Marches in the UK in protest at the illegal, unprovoked attack on Iran are called, in inverted commas to prevent lawsuits, 'hate marches', a bit like the Good Samaritan being accused of hate for going to the aid of the man set upon by robbers.

"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  or other war against American dominance. The end came from the United States itself trying to juxtapose its interest to every other country thinking we're going to put sanctions against everyone who doesn't agree with us, we hate China because they're more prosperous than us. We hate Russia because Russia is supporting China. We hate Iran because we don't control its oil. We hate Iraq and Syria because we don't control its oil. And now Trump in the last few days has said, "We're really angry with Europe because Europe didn't send its navy to commit suicide and all be killed by joining us in opening the Persian Gulf." He said, "Hey, Europe, if you want oil, why don't you send your navy to open up the the Persian Gulf and go and come and get it? We don't need it. It's our war but your problem - that and well it's the United States all the way from the Bushes through Obama through Trump that has closed off the United States from the rest of the world and virtually declared war on the rest of the world leaving the whole rest of the world what was no option except to join Iran." Michael Hudson, ancient historian, in this podcast. I recommend it highly.

When Greek meets Greek

Sweet are the uses of adversity. Iran has been released from prison by this war and is or will be, Robert Pape predicts, one of the five most powerful countries in he world. It looks as if Trump hopes to intimidate Iran by sending troops close to Iran - Iran will not be intimidated. Iran is in an extraordinarily strong position, all thanks to the outrageously illegal unprovoked and murderous war that Trump has launched (compare Putin in Ukraine and Milosevic in Kosovo). The conman, as we now see him to be, was conned by Netanyahu. When Greek meets Greek.

Everybody who thinks without preconceptions about the US, Russia, China, and Iran and who ignores the media babble now sees with surprise that the US is the terror state. Iran and the Houthis are behaving bravely and even, I'd say, in a measured and moral way.

Professor John Mearsheimer on Tuesday: "If there were Nuremberg trials right now where the Israelis and the Americans were brought before the court President Trump along with President Netanyahu and many of their advisors would be hanged." He was talking about the attack on Iran though he said exactly the same thing last year.

Interestingly he says that a quarter to a third of Israelis will be ultraorthodox by 2050. They do not serve in the army. The secular socialist Israel of fifty years ago is long gone. Meanwhile Israel is occupying southern Lebanon where a previous Israeli occupation created Hezbollah.

This is my prediction

The war ends when Iran says and Iran will keep the Strait in her hands till America leaves the Middle East. That would be good even for America but a terrible terrible humiliation for Trump. 

Zugswang.

Iran wants to destroy Trump’s presidency as she destroyed Carter's and will succeed by continuing the war till the November elections.

April Fools

Volpone:

Fools, they are the only nation
Worth men's envy, or admiration:
Free from care or sorrow-taking,
Selves and others merry making:
All they speak or do is sterling.
Your fool he is your great man's darling,
And your ladies' sport and pleasure;
Tongue and bauble are his treasure.
E'en his face begetteth laughter,
And he speaks truth free from slaughter;
He's the grace of every feast,
And sometimes the chiefest guest;
Hath his trencher and his stool,
When wit waits upon the fool:
O, who would not be
He, he, he?

Coleridge: "Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people, because they have a power of looking at such persons as objects of amusement of another race altogether." 

Irish comedian Dave Allen (1936–2005): "I still think of myself as I was 25 years ago... Then I look in a mirror and see an old bastard and realise it's me".

Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian revolutionary who fought the Bolsheviks: "War is when your government tells you who your enemy is, revolution is when you figure it out for yourself." (Acknowledgements to Christopher Newbury.)

Netanyahu explains he is working to make Israel a global power. In fact Israel was one of the two most powerful countries in the world until they started this war

Netanyahu today.

"We are working on transforming Israel into a super nation in the region and globally.

"We were able to do so thanks to our soldiers and our captains.

"And all those who fought and those who died."

US has 8,000 missiles. Iran has 45,000 missiles as well as drones and they are making drones cheaply

US Colonel Douglas Macgregor says the US in total has in total about 8,000 missiles of all kinds and Iran is thought to have 45,000 missiles kept underground plus drones which they are making cheaply. The Israelis and Americans used very expensive missiles to down incoming cheap Iranian missiles. Iranians saved their expensive missiles until after their enemies had depleted their supplies.

Michael Hudson

It’s not just fighting against Iran now. It’s fighting against Iran, supported by Russia and China, because they all realize that this is a fight to the end, to decide: Is the United States going to be able to reassert its control over the world economy using monopolies? The oil monopoly, the information technology monopoly that it’s trying to do, the computer chip monopoly, the technology monopoly, also its ability to supply food to other countries, its exports and control of grain.

This is the last chance that it has. And there’s a feeling of desperation that has led the US planners to bet at all.

And that I think that it’s not going to work. All of the generals have told them that it’s not going to work. The generals who have been pessimistic have pretty much been forced out of the military, and the State Department, because, “If you’re pessimistic, well, why aren’t you on board? You know, why aren’t you on the team? Or are you Putin’s puppet? You know, you’ve just gotta have faith”.

America believed that it could not lose any war because its policy of bombing other countries was always going to work.

The American philosophy is, number one, you bomb civilians; you break all the rules of international law which are against that. You bomb civilians to demoralize them.

And if you concentrate, as Trump did along with Israel, a few weeks ago, you bomb the schools; you bomb the hospitals. That’s American policy in foreign countries.

It’s most visible in the case of Israeli policy, in Gaza, and now the West Bank as well. And it is the same policy that the United States has followed in Iran.

Well, the idea was that this would demoralize the population, and the Iranian population would want to get rid of the ayatollahs and say, “We don’t want to be bombed anymore; we want to save the children; let’s make a deal and appoint a leader favorable to the United States so that it will stop bombing us”.

Well, this was nonsense from the beginning, but it was the guiding spirit of American foreign policy: bomb a country, and that will lead to a regime change, and a collapse.

That was what America expected in Russia.

But Iran essentially has the same spirit that Patrick Henry had in America’s revolution against Britain in 1776. He said, “Give me liberty or give me death!”. And that’s exactly what Iran is saying.

For them, this is existential, because they know what the US plans are, since the United States has been so open about what its plans are.

Yes, they want a regime change; they want to break up Iran into parts; they want to take control of Iranian oil and use the oil export revenues to support the US dollar, and to support basically the US economy, and to give American foreign policy the option of turning off the oil to other countries, to say, “We can close down your industry, your chemical industry, all your industries that need electric power, oil, gas; we can do all that, if you take an independent policy, following your own sovereignty. And we in the United States reject the United Nations principle that every nation has its own sovereignty”.

This is the basic principle of Western civilization for the last half century, the basic principle of the United Nations Charter. All of that is being rejected by the United States.

I am against the death penalty mildly but it is a strange hill to die (or argue against deaths) on

Jonathan Cook 

@jonathancook

Israel committed genocide in Gaza, mostly likely killing 100,000s of Palestinians.

Now the UK and European foreign ministers worry that Israel passing an apartheid death penalty law for Palestinians might "undermine Israel’s commitments with regards to democratic principles".

Jonathan Cook 

2 Mar

@jonathancook

Remember the western media's constant refrain that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was "unprovoked" – despite years of documented western provocations.

Iran did nothing to provoke the Israeli-US attack. Yet notice this: not one media outlet has described the attack as "unprovoked".

A Chinese view: Iran has already won

I think I agree with this substack by a retired Chinese businessman.

Now that a regime change is off the table, the US war objective has changed to keep Strait of Hormuz open.

This change alone tells you the US has already lost the war since the Strait of Hormuz was open before the war. Essentially, the US is prosecuting the war to merely return to the pre-war status quo.

And even this modest goal is unlikely to be achieved without costing thousands of US lives since it has no choice but to send in ground troops.

Gas price, the default barometer of US voters’ ability to absorb pain, has gone from $2.9 per gallon to $3.9.

Amazingly, that society’s focal point about foreign wars is always the impact on gas prices, and never the legality or morality of the atrocities. Or the cost to the nation as a whole.

In a twist of supreme irony, the Trump regime is now un-sanctioning Iranian and Russian oil in an attempt to lower gas prices.

Rather than crippling Iran’s finances, Trump is helping Iran’s finances in the middle of an unprovoked war against it.

It is safe to bet that Iran will emerge as the strongest power in West Asia at the end of the war. It will have a de facto control of Middle Eastern energy supply as it dictates who can or cannot pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

It is hard to see how America can fail to be badly defeated in this tragi-comic war. Will it last years?

Glenn Diesen

"Trump is starting to resemble Yeltsin, but without the ability to blame the vodka."

Eric Kraus

"One of the wonderful things about Trump is that he has rendered even the most obtuse supporters of the Hegemon painfully aware of the dangers of the unipolar dominance model.

"The American body politic is unstable at best, delirious at worst - a country where one half the population expects the Rapture whilst the other half believes that gender is "assigned" at birth - is unlikely to be constrained by considerations of anything quite so banal as reality."

Horace Walpole

"This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel."

Carl Zha

"Iran is exporting oil to China at much greater volume than before the war while Venezuelan oil continues to flow to China. So much for Trump's 5D chess to choke off Chinese energy supply."

Aristotle

“The tyrant is also very ready to make war; for this keeps his subjects occupied and in continued need of a leader…[It is] characteristic of a tyrant’s policy…[that] the flatterer too is held in honor…those who keep him company in an obsequious spirit, which is the function of flattery. This makes tyranny favor the baser sort, in the sense that a tyrant loves to be flattered, and no man of free spirit will oblige him. Respectable men…refrain from flattery, and base men are useful for base deeds…Anyone who shows a rival pride and a spirit of freedom destroys the master-like character of the tyranny. Thus the tyrant hates such people as destroyers of his rule…All these and their like are marks of tyranny and ways of maintaining it; and they are utterly depraved.” (The Politics, Book V, Chapter XI)

Trita Parsi on X

Energy industry insider in Iran tells me the following, and it is STUNNING:

Before the war, Iran produced just shy of 1.1mn barrels of oil per day, and sold it at $65 per barrel minus $18 discount (i.e. $47) 

Today, it produces 1.5mn barrels a day, and sells it at $110 with only $2-4 discount.

 

And this does not include petrochemical sales that not only have increased, but are now being sold to a larger set of customers compared to before the war.

Moreover, Iran is receiving payments through new mechanisms that bypass the UAE, which were set up after the June war. 

In essence, and this is really important to understand, Trump and Israel's war has ended up delivering Iran de facto sanctions relief.

This means that Iran is all the less incentivized to end the war, unless the agreement provides Iran with formal sanctions relief.

Trump says America will next attack Cuba. Former PM Naftali Bennett says Israel's next enemy will be Turkey. Can the world defend itself against rogue states?

REPORTER: "You mentioned that Cuba will be next, what did you mean by that exactly?" 

PRESIDENT TRUMP: "Yeah, Cuba's going to be next. Cuba's a mess, it's a failing country, and they're going to be next."

The defining issue of our time is the US-Israeli war against Iran

I didn't think I'd live to see a worse US President than George W Bush, though Biden admittedly ran him pretty close, but Trump has proven far, far worse. 

He may have fatally injured the American empire - which would be a good thing, in case you wondered.

James Buchanan and James Carter can't be compared to Trump. They were merely mediocre, both loved peace and meant well.

Professor Norman Finkelstein has said the attack on Iran is 'probably the most brazen, flagrant breach ever of the UN charter', pointing out that even Hitler bothered to fabricate an excuse before invading Poland. Washington simply bypassed international law.

I just watched Israeli Minister Itamar Ben Gvir call for the assassination of Ahmad Al-Shara (Al-Julani) the new president of Syria.

“The new Syrian president must be killed—he is the head of the snake.
The battle with the new Syria is a fateful one for Israelis, and it is coming.”

Then Erdoğan? 

Former Israeli PM Naftali Bennet, who now says Israel is losing the war, recently said Turkey would be next.

Here is the greatest living Israeli Gideon Levy explaining how Israel's occupation of Southern Lebanon created Hezbollah. Netanyahu we know built up and financed Hamas while imprisoning its moderate members. The interview takes 8 minutes.

Mainstream US journalist Abby Martin about Israeli society:

“Israeli society has gone full fucking fascist. It's like Berlin in the 1930s... They know the kids are starving. They agree with it...”

Mainstream US journalists you notice now criticise Israel. Eventually, slowly, America opinion formers will stop supporting Israel. Voters already have.

Canny and well-informed ex-CIA man Larry Johnson was interesting last night here. He calls Israel a 'terror state'. 

It seems to me that the USA has become a terror state this year if it was not before (and it was).

Iran is waging war superbly and so far with restraint and morality. She is winning the war of minds in the world too. 

Iranians are hitting Israel but I suspect they pull their punches for fear of a nuclear response.

I have opposed war since I started this blog. I oppose this war but I do not want Iran to negotiate now when they are in an overwhelmingly strong position. 

Iran's stopping fighting last year was a big mistake. 

There will be no ceasefire. It is in Iran's interest for the war to go on for many months - and that's not taking into account the Houthis who have finally entered the war and who can block the Red Sea.

Czar Nicholas I was fond of saying that Europe had on its hands a sick man, meaning Turkey. Europe and the rest of the world now has a sick man on its hands, Donald Trump.