Quotations

“The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.”

Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian


"Now supposing the French or the Neapolitan soldier
Should by some evil chance come exploring the Maison Serny
(Where the family English are all to assemble for safety),
Am I prepared to lay down my life for the British female?

I love this picture of the Kretulescu Church

 

Chas Freeman thinks Israel will eventually go the way of the crusader kingdoms and that Iran could get the bomb in 2 weeks

Former US Ambassador to the KSA Chas Freeman is exceptionally incisive and intelligent. I recommend his latest podcast and all his podcasts.

He thinks it will take Iran only 2 weeks to have weapons grain uranium with which to make an atom bomb underground.

Let's see.

I think if it happens it will be good news for everyone.

<So what we're looking at potentially is the repeat of the history of the two Christian kingdoms in the middle ages
just before the Renaissance in the 11th 12th centuries in Palestine which also depended on external support and
when that external support was removed they collapsed. So the question is where are the Israelis going to go?

I think there are Israelis who are prepared to live in a democracy that includes non-Jews and clearly a single state in Palestine, whether it's called Israel or Palestine, which embraced both Arabs and Arab Muslims and Christian and Arab Jews, as well as European Jews, would be a society in which the Jewish component could continue to play a leading role just by virtue of its capabilities, level of education, energy and commitment.

But something like that happening is going to be very hard because Israelis instead of taking October 7th and the Hamas breakout from the concentration camp of Gaza as a caution and a reason to reconsider a purely military strategy for survival and ethnic cleansing as a means of consolidating Jewish control, they see this as cause for vengeance at the level of genocide.

And the polls show that the problem is not Mr. Netanyahu so much as the entire Israeli citizenry.

About 80% support the war with Iran. Notwithstanding the damage they've taken the punishment they've earned and they mostly support the genocide in Gaza there's no effort being made to curtail the settlers. On the contrary the government is supporting them and the war in Lebanon is seen as a great opportunity for it to expand its borders to the north.

So this is a society that is essentially, in clinical terms, sociopathic and that's not going to change if Mr. Netanyahu falls from power. That will not solve anything.>

The cost of Trump's famous victory

Congressman Ed Case says the US has lost a staggering 39 aircraft in the disastrous war against Iran. He thinks the most 7 most expensive aircraft cost 25 billion. The Pentagon estimates the total costs of the war come to 29 billion but experts think it may be twice as high.

Chas Freeman thinks the numbers of US casualties are far higher than admitted. John Mearsheimer thinks the same. 

No doubt the same is true for the numbers of Israeli casualties.

Poetry in motion

 

What an absolutely useless government Great Britain has

Kemi would probably also have done this were she in power. We said we had no interests east of Suez in the 1960s and nor do we. Nor does the USA either, by the way.

Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, in "The Grand Chessboard" (1997)

 

Arnaud Bertrand: What's going on? Are neocons having a come-to-Jesus moment?

After Bob Kagan writing an article on how the U.S. is facing "total defeat" in Iran (see x.com/RnaudBertrand/…), you now have Max Boot - the very author of “The Case for American Empire” and one of the most vocal advocates for the Iraq war - publishing a Washington Post interview explaining that China has surpassed the U.S. in most military domains.
If anything, Boot’s interview is even more devastating than Kagan's piece, because it's not editorial opinion - he’s interviewing John Culver, a former top CIA analyst (he was national intelligence officer for East Asia) and one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Chinese military which he’s been studying since 1985.
This isn't a pundit opining - this is someone who spent decades inside the intelligence community staring at the actual data.
So what is Culver saying?
1) In case of war with Taiwan, the U.S. will flee the theater
This is undoubtedly the single most stunning revelation in the entire piece. Culver says that - as far as he is aware - the Pentagon’s plan in case of war with Taiwan is… flee!
This is the exact quote: "I think some of the thinking in the Pentagon, and it may have evolved since I retired, is that when we think there’s going to be a war, we need to get our high-value naval assets out of the theater, and then we would have to fight our way back in. From where, it’s not clear. Guam is no bastion either."
Why? Because, as he explains, any high-value U.S. assets would be sitting ducks in the entire area. China can strike U.S. forces deployed to Japan, Australia, or South Korea “in a way that Iran really can't” and, given that Iran has hit at least 228 targets across U.S. bases in the Middle East - forcing the U.S. to evacuate most of them - that's saying something. Also, U.S. aircraft carriers would need to operate within 1,000 miles of the fight to matter, which - given it’s well within range of Chinese missiles - they won’t.
As Culver bluntly puts it: “There's really no safe spaces.”

The rest of the article is here.

The world of lies

The free speech rally in London in September attracted 100,000 people but was not reported in the media because it was anti-establishment, except in the Guardian which called it far right. Everywhere I now see reports of the London rally against anti-semitism (20,000 people) which is pro-establishment. This is because the antisemitism scare is one created for political purposes,

Marches in sympathy with the Arabs of Gaza and Lebanon are called hate marches by the MI6 compliant media, are restricted and will be further restricted if Starmer stays in power.

People who march for peace with Iran are called pro-Iranian. Admittedly after the US assault on Iran lots of people who never expected to do support the Iranian forces in their defensive war (most people I speak to do) but the marches are not for Iran or her system but for peace.

Being opposed to Israel is starting to be considered by the British deep state borderline illegal.

It wasn't like this at all in the 1970s or 1980s or 1990s. Plenty of Tory knights of the shires (old school Conservative politicians sitting for rural constituencies) were mildly or strongly pro-Arab.

Slovak PM Fico yesterday in Bratislava

"The Russians will supply the Americans with gas and oil at normal prices… and the Americans will sell it to us with a huge American high-margin surcharge."

Arnaud Bertrand on Substack

This (arabnews.com/node/2642938) is, by any measure, an extraordinary article: Prince Turki Al-Faisal is a son of King Faisal and ran Saudi intelligence (the GID) for over two decades.

He is writing that the plan of "the US-Israeli war on Iran" was "to ignite war between us [Saudi Arabia] and Iran," so that Israel could "impose its will on the region and remained the only actor in our surroundings."

This further confirms that, contrary to what many have asserted, the notion that the Saudis were quietly backing the war on Iran was a myth (alongside the recent fact the Saudis denied the U.S. access to its bases and airspace: x.com/RnaudBertrand/…).

From the horse's mouth they're literally saying it was as much a war on them as it was on Iran!

Zelensky is corrupt, a liar and took drugs, according to former press secretary

Zelensky's former press secretary, who resigned the year before the Russian invasion, now in long interview with Tucker Carlson accuses Zelensky of corruption, taking cocaine and much else besides.

Testimony that Arabs were raped in detention by dogs trained by Israelis

Testimonies of Palestinians raped by dogs last month were dismissed by some people who support Israel as impossible.

The New York Times has now published the testimony of a Palestinian detainee.
Note that there is no testimony from victims of the frequently repeated allegations that Hamas men raped women on 7 October 2023. There is a lot of evidence of numerous rapes of Arab prisoners by Israelis. The media has kept quiet about this in the past.






Caitlin Johnstone comments:
'Contrary to popular belief, the highest award in journalism is not the Pulitzer. The highest award in all of journalism is being accused of antisemitism by the Israeli government for factual reporting.
'But the New York Times is unworthy of this award. The Times has been running cover for the Gaza holocaust from the very beginning with extensively documented biases in its reporting, and played a leading role in promoting the atrocity propaganda about mass rapes on October 7. Israel’s abuses were actively facilitated by the New York Times, including its systemic sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners.'

Robert Kagan

This is Robert Kagan, the arch neo-con and husband of Victoria Nuland, writing yesterday in the Atlantic. 

<It’s hard to think of a time when the United States suffered a total defeat in a conflict, a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored. The calamitous losses suffered at Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, and throughout the Western Pacific in the first months of World War II were eventually reversed. The defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan were costly but did not do lasting damage to America’s overall position in the world, because they were far from the main theaters of global competition. The initial failure in Iraq was mitigated by a shift in strategy that ultimately left Iraq relatively stable and unthreatening to its neighbors and kept the United States dominant in the region.

Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored. There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done. The Strait of Hormuz will not be “open,” as it once was. With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region and one of the key players in the world.>

To his credit he opposed the US Israeli attack on Iran from the start, the only good thing I ever heard about him.

Losing faith

"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 on X

"Don’t dismiss the once-a-year mob: they embody our national religion.
Churches exist as much for those who don’t go as for those who do, and that is part of their beauty. Those who pack pews at Midnight Mass express deeply embedded pieties that are separate from devout Christian faith."
AN Wilson, Friday December 22 2023, The Times

"If you have a sloppy religion, you get a sloppy atheism." Mgr Ronald Knox

"When a Catholic does not believe in God he knows exactly what God it is he does not believe in." Anonymous

The Black Death

 

Russia isn't finished

May 2001:

From an article by Leonid Ragozin in The American Conservative.

'Pretty much all of my interlocutors are strongly anti-Putin and antiwar. In my intelligentsia circle, you need to walk miles to find anyone pro. People do complain about the ongoing economic slowdown, pointing to the closure of some of their favorite small businesses, like boutique fashion brands that had only recently emerged. They are aghast at the Russian government’s (so-far unsuccessful) attacks on popular messaging services and perturbed by mobile internet interruptions in the center of Moscow caused by the Ukrainian drone threat.


'But unlike Ukrainians, who live in constant fear of Russian strikes and of press gangs roaming the streets in search of fresh recruits, people in Russia are still enjoying much the same kind of lives as before the war, with living standards comparable to poorer EU member countries (check IMF’s GDP PPP charts).

If only Iran had the bomb

As John Mearsheimer says Iran getting the bomb would stabilise the region. 

Had Pakistan given Iran some nukes the world would have been spared the war, a lot of innocent civilians including many schoolgirls would be alive and the Strait of Hormuz would be open.

According to the well informed Colonel Douglas Macgregor yesterday, Iran slaughtered not 40,000 innocent spontaneous protesters but 3,200 people mostly but not entirely armed and guided by the CIA and Mossad in a plot to change the regime. I've said something much like this repeatedly.

Hundreds of Kurdish fighters crossing the Turkish border were killed by Iranian soldiers tipped off by Erdoğan.

That attempted coup was an act of unprovoked war. 

Fortunately drones have destroyed US military dominance. 

This will have huge consequences for Israel. 

The regime change psychop in Iran makes it hard to doubt that Kiev 2014 was another one

An excellent argument against antisemitism

The British Green Party are being very unfairly accused in the papers of antisemitism  just as Corbyn was. This is how the US controlled media deal with threats to US policy.

Here is a very good essay aimed at people critical of Israel, which is most people in the world, arguing very cogently why the sins of Israel and the Israel lobbies around the world should not logically be held against Jews in general.

Iran will decide when the war ends

What western values do the US or its supporters the UK or the EU embody? Invading countries, bombing civilians, schools, hospitals deliberately, killing countless children, committing piracy to arrest ships carrying oil quite legally, assassinating foreign leaders, organising regime change operations, castrating boys, organising the replacement of Europeans by Africans and Asians?

In case you missed it President Trump threatened Iran with a nuclear holocaust yesterday.

“If there’s no ceasefire… you’re just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran. They better sign the agreement fast… If they don’t sign, they’re going to have a lot of pain.”


There are no words for this but fortunately the world assumes it is empty bluster. He is King Lear as he would have been had King Lear had a nuclear arsenal and ruled much of the world.

The world says North Korea is dangerous but North Korea is the most stable country in the world because it has nuclear weapons. 

Iran would be too if she had them. 

Israel on the other hand has them and is anything but stable. 

Trump likewise.

Iran will decide when the war ends.

Here is an excellent article in The Atlantic. Several people close to Trump say he would accept any deal that Iran offers but Iran is not offering one. So much for the art of the deal.

Fars News reports that Iran is planning to take control of the undersea cables in the Strait of Hormuz as well and plans to charge fees for the use of the cables.

These cables carry over 97% of global internet traffic passing between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Sweet for Iran are the uses of adversity.

Melanchon will take France out of Nato

French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon: “We will withdraw from NATO. NATO only serves one purpose: to place us under U.S. control. ... Israel is the most dangerous country in the region today. It is Israel that is attacking all its neighbors. It is the one triggering the war. It is carrying out a genocide. When I say Israel, I mean Netanyahu’s government.”

I'd respect Starmer or Macron or Merz if they said this but no chance. 

Romania is too powerless to do so.

Europe should make a lasting peace with Russia and Iran and be friends with China. Nato must go.

Brian Berletic thinks the war with Iran will not end though it might pause

Brian Berletic, a former American marine turned defence analyst, argues that America is not a dog being wagged by its Israeli tail. 

Israel is an artificial state created for imperial purposes by Great Britain and then taken over by America, which exists to enable American hegemony of the Middle East.

The US defence lobby spends far more money and has far more power than the Israel lobby.

In his vision, America is a perpetual war machine seeking to control the world and the war in Iran is aimed at China.

Many people think this. It is true.

One purpose of the Ukrainian war from the American point of view is to make Europe dependent on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) imported from America rather than cheap gas from Russia.

America does not protect its allies. It in fact paints a sign on their heads inviting attack.

The alliances are in fact forms of vassalage.

American now seeks to extend its power to Indonesia.

One of the means by which America does this is by controlling the media space throughout most of the world apart from Russia, China, Iran and a few other places.

This makes it difficult for Indonesians to see that it is in their interest to be friends with China rather than to antagonise China by being allied to America.

The war with Iran will continue indefinitely. It serves a purpose which is to deny energy to the Far East and to assert American control over many places.

Iran has been in America's gunsights since 1979 many and many of the campaigns waged by America against countries take many years to win. An example is Syria. Iran has been at the receiving end of astonishingly cruel American treatment since 1979. The best example I suppose is Cuba which has been sanctioned since Castro came to power.

Brian Berletic says that the only hope for the world is that the US 'allies' give up their alliances. I have argued something like this for years, as far as the UK and Europe are concerned.

Israel is a American tool just as Ukraine is an American tool, the latter being used to attack Russia for American imperial purposes.

I think the American military imperialist state came into existence after Pearl Harbor, took over Britain and America and the current US war against Iran and proxy war against Russia and China is a continuation of the American phase of the Second World War that started in1941.

Far from being Britain's finest hour the Second World War is the moment we became an American satellite.

Meanwhile, an argument for the view that Israel is responsible for the Iranian war is made by Tucker Carlson who has said he told Trump to his face: "Netanyahu hates you. Rupert Murdoch despises you. Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin - they all hate you. The people pushing you into this war want to destroy you. On behalf of Israel."

And Trump's response? "Yeah, I know."

Two Israeli voices

 

The BBC is the British equivalent of RT

 Same day: 

Somalis "hijack" ships. 

The US "boards" them.

Nobody would know from the BBC that the US has no right to board ships carrying Russian in international waters.

By the way the Straits of Hormuz are not international waters. Half belongs to Iran, half to Oman.

Lawrence Wilkerson (Colin Powell's Chief of Staff) said Netanyahu's actions in Lebanon surpass Hitler. Talking of which...

Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli Minister of Finance and extremist, has a son who serves in the IDF and recovered from shrapnel wounds in March. He said yesterday on television: 'My son wants me to leave some Lebanon for him to destroy later. I told him don't worry, there will be enough for everyone.'


Ana Kasparian commented: 'Our legacy media, which covers for this depravity while excoriating anyone who sheds light on it, is a disgrace.'

This morning at 7

The sound of the liturgy being sung drifts into the crisp morning air. I love the Orthodox liturgy, which colours everything in Romania.

The evil empire looks like it's about to start its murder spree again

It's pretty sure America and Israel are about to restart their unprovoked war on Iran. Ursula von der Leyen and Merz will not say a word of condemnation nor Bolojan or Nicușor Dan. 

I hope the gallant Iranians (nobody can question their great courage which contrasts with the cowardice of the Americans and the IDF) get their retaliation in first.

It is unclear but it seems they have fired a missile at the UAE gangster state. 

They have held back so far from destroying Arab desalination plants, possibly for moral reasons. 

If they do goodbye Dubai.

The war can't end in the foreseeable future because Iran cannot be safe from further attacks by America and Israel, just as there will be  no peace in Ukraine because Russia can't trust a heavily armed Ukraine not to launch a revanchist attack after being armed by her allies.  

America causes wars everywhere and is the big threat to world peace on every continent.

America has become a demonic force, more the evil empire than the USSR was.

Blasphemy

Marc Boxer got sent down from Oxford for blasphemy for publishing a poem beginning "As God was starting his Bentley.."

Conflicts Forum’s compilation of strategic perspectives from leading Israeli commentators (predominantly translated from Hebrew), 3 May 2026

 Conflicts Forum is run by Alastair Crooke.

The whole very long text is here.

‘Israel’s Security Concept of Perpetual War Marks a Profound & Problematic Shift in its Traditional Security Doctrine’ (Udi Evental, Colonel (res.); Strategy and Policy):

‘The past two and a half years proves that the approach of preventing emerging threats by relying solely on force does not truly provide Israel with security, but rather exhausts it and erodes its ability to prepare for long-term challenges. Israel must return to the fundamentals – robust and effective defence, within our borders and with an offensive dimension when necessary. At the end of the day, wars are not won on the battlefield but through agreements that translate military achievements into an improved strategic reality’.

‘The Threshold of Paranoia was Crossed on 7 October; Israel Adopted a ‘Hardline’ Version of Permanent Security’ (Professor Yigal Levy, military sociologist):

‘Permanent security aims not only to eliminate immediate threats but also future ones, and is therefore subject to a paranoid mindset that generates self-fulfilling threats. The pursuit of a permanent solution allows for no compromise, whether political or deterrent; rather, it entails the destruction, expulsion or control of a population perceived as endangering the state’s security’.

‘With Permanent War, There is No End Game; The Enemy is an Undifferentiated Mass of Different Guises of Amalek’ (Professor Idan Landau — full interview in English):

‘Every single issue in foreign affairs is framed as either “existential threat” or “unavoidable use of military force”. There’s absolutely no room for talk about non-violent paths (“peace” is a taboo even on the left). The Enemy is an undifferentiated mass of Hamas/Iran/Hezbollah/ Houthis, in short, different guises of Amalek. The Gaza genocide has set a shocking new standard of indifference to civilian casualties: All targets are criminalized by association to your favorite Amalek (currently the IRGC), and we stopped bothering about substantiating this association with actual facts; declaring it so makes it so’.

‘Israel’s specific version of fascism has, in effect, produced divine or rabbinic legitimation for genocide’ (Interview with Professor Omer Bartov):

“The Holocaust … gradually became the glue binding Israeli society. A historical event transformed into an imminent threat: not something that happened in the past, but something always at the threshold. There will be another Holocaust if we don’t meet every threat with full force and destroy it at the root. After October 7, these two things fused. Hamas’s attack was framed as a Holocaust-like act — Hamas are Nazis. Criticizing Israel’s actions is antisemitic”.

George Sand

George Sand on Madam de Stael: 'A great cow full of ink.'

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve: "George Sand has a great soul and a perfectly enormous bottom.”

Brian Berlertic: Is the US Blockade on Iran Working?

The US claims it has absolutely cut off all Iranian exports/imports.
This is false.
Others claim the blockade is essentially non-existent citing social media claims and wishful thinking.
This is also false.
It is somewhere in between.
The US is turning back nearly as many ships as are being reported to have bypassed it.
This means the US has stopped anywhere between 40%-60% of Iranian imports/exports.
That isn't "nothing."
I particularly hear MANY analysts citing pictures on social media of meager meals US sailors are reportedly being served on US warships as evidence of deep systemic logistical failures.
I was a US Marine over 20 years ago - long before this war started. I was occasionally on ships. And each time I ate meager meals much worse than pictured.
On one occasion I was on a 3 day transit and 100s of us ate stale bread, slimy cold cuts, and rotten lettuce morning, noon, and evening until on the last day we only ate once.
Logistics are never perfect even in peacetime. Meager meals don't make operations impossible - just miserable. And that is it.
A few pictures on social media indicate gaps in logistics. Much more widespread evidence would exist if a logistical collapse was actually taking place.
Collapsing logistics manifests in operational failure.
Cutting half of a targeted nation's maritime traffic isn't failure.
Who Will Blink First, Iran or the US?
Those banking on Iran's restrictions across the Strait of Hormuz and the economic damage it is doing to US proxies forcing the US to back off first are making the wrong bet.
The US doesn't care about its proxies - and in fact - the worse things are for its proxies the easier it is for the US to exercise control over them.
Currently the US is in the process of specifically exploiting this economic crisis - assuming energy dominance over many of the nations impacted by restrictions through the Strait of Hormuz - much in the same way it did over Europe by destroying Nord Stream and sanctioning Russian energy.
The premeditated nature of this strategy - including years of preparing Asia-specific LNG export capabilities that otherwise make no economic sense - mirrors similar preparations to export LNG to Europe BEFORE Nord Stream was destroyed and the US provoked war with Russia in Ukraine.
Such conditions also make it possible for the US to impose additional control over yet-to-be proxies - nations like Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and others who have so far been managing a relatively neutral position geopolitically.
By facing reality and calling out the deliberate controlled demolition of the global economy by the US - more pressure can be placed on the US to stop - but also pressure placed on governments targeted by the US to exploit this crisis to resist US coercion.
If we pretend Iran is "defeating" the US - we'll end in an even darker nightmare than those who thought Trump was going to prevent this growing global war in the first place.
We can make the future brighter - but we have to acknowledge reality first in order to do so.
What Could We Do?
1. Expose what the US is doing and why.
2. Condemn it.
3. Wake up populations in nations around the globe against the danger of falling into energy dependence on the US - citing Europe as a prime example.
4. Invest in multipolarism - both as a general policy and trend - but also in any way we can personally.
5. Research and promote alternative energy - encourage people to follow China's energy policy and even cooperate with China to ensure energy independence vis-a-vis Washington and Wall Street's wrecking ball foreign policy.

Colonel Jacques Baud: Hamas and Hezbollah are resistance movements not terrorists, fighting an illegal occupation

Swiss Colonel Jacques Baud in this podcast

I mean obviously you have groups like Hezbollah or Hamas who are designated
by the West as terrorist but if you start to establish criteria for terrorism then you find both Hamas and Hezbollah don't fall in this category, not even all these groups that exist in Iraq, for instance, who are Shia and of course people will say Iran backed groups. Well, but these are resistance movement against an illegal occupation. That applies to Iraq which is still occupied by the US. This applies to Hezbollah which is still occupied by Israel. This applied to Hamas which territory is still occupied by Israel. And I remind you the decision of the international court of
justice of July 2024 saying that all occupation of the Palestinian territory, meaning Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, is illegal. Period. And the decision of the international court of justice that Israel must get out of these territories and Hamas, Fatah and all these groups are in fact resistance movement against an illegal occupation period. So in that sense they don't fall into the category of a terrorist organization although they might use a terrorist methods if you want but again we don't have evidence of that and that is something that we need to say.

Laurence Wilkinson: 'Netanyahu's behaviour in Lebanon 'equals or surpasses Hitler's'

Retired US Colonel Larry  Wilkerson, who was Colin Powell's chief of staff, says in this podcast that Netanyahu's behaviour in Lebanon 'equals or surpasses Hitler's'. 

The press in every Western country ignores this. 

He rightly blames Netanyahu for the murder of the greatest Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzak Rabin. 

He also blames Netanyahu for rising antisemitism and this is obviously true. 

It's worth watching, as the colonel always is.

Brian Berlertic says the US engineered the Arab spring

[We must all hope for the end of the American empire. A grand peace involving Russia China Iran and America is needed not rearmament in Europe.]

US/IRAN - Blame Game Continues Following Lost US Battle Amid Continued War on Iran 

Claims that Israel "tricked" the US into war with Iran is simply blame-shifting and scapegoating after a lost battle amid a still unfinished war. 

The notion President Trump suddenly decided to launch a war based on assurances from Israeli PM Netanyahu is detached from material reality and documented history. 

The war against Iran in 2025 and 2026 was not possible without the collapse of Syria, the eradication of its air defenses, and the creation of an air corridor to Iran itself. 

The collapse of Syria in 2024 under Biden wasn't possible without the US-engineered "Arab Spring" in 2011 under Obama and the preparations for it including the training of opposition groups and the arming of extremists which took place under both the Bush and Obama administrations. 

US war on Iran has been a continuous bipartisan agenda carried out across multiple US presidencies - Republican or Democratic - driven by the corporate-financier interests most benefiting from US primacy worldwide - including the arms industry and big-oil. 

By playing into this scapegoating - people are affording the US plausible deniability and giving them space and time to prepare for next battle in this war under the cover of public ignorance. 

Take that cover away from them - force them to do it out in the open - ensure they AND their proxies are BOTH held accountable - and EVERY administration past, present and future that aided and abetted in it connected to it - and just maybe we can begin to break this cycle of global death and destruction.

Caitlin Johnstone

Basically every Israel-Palestine debate goes like this:
“Israel did X.”
“Yeah, because Hamas did Y.”
“Yeah, because Israel did Z.”
“Yeah but only because the Palestinians keep doing A.”
“Okay but that’s wouldn’t have happened of the Israelis hadn’t been doing B.”
“But that only happened because the Arabs did C!”
But if you bring the debate back far enough in time, eventually you get to the part where the western world forcibly dropped a brand new ethnostate on top of a pre-existing civilization without the permission of — and to the extreme detriment of — the people who were already living there.
Sure you can go further back and say “Oh yeah well the Jews lived there thousands of years ago,” but that’s just silly. There’s no valid reason to believe some Jewish guy in New York City even has any meaningful lineage connecting him to that land more strongly than any random Muslim in Turkey or wherever, and even if there was, it would still be absurd to cite ancient history as the basis for a territorial claim. I’m only a few generations removed from my ancestry in Ireland and Scotland, but it would be ridiculous for me to show up demanding the home of someone who lives there.
So the original source for the grievance is clearly the artificial creation of an ethnonationalist state in the mid-20th century, and the push by Zionists and western imperialists to make it happen. That’s the initial act of abuse that spawned this whole gigantic mess.
And how has it all worked out? History speaks for itself. Generations of nonstop violence and abuse, culminating in the slaughter and chaos throughout the middle east that we see before us today.
This means that creating Israel was a mistake. A mistake that needs to be corrected.
Zionists will collapse into a shrieking pile of vitriol and hyperbole when you say this, claiming you’re calling for the extermination of Jews, but this is false. Certainly righting the wrongs of the past and ending a national order premised on putting the interests of Jews before Palestinians would inconvenience a lot of the Jewish people who’ve been living there, but there’s no basis for the claim that it would entail their deaths. Apartheid South Africa was dismantled without the extermination of millions of white people, and there’s no reason to believe the dismantling of apartheid Israel would entail the extermination of Jews.
The Israel experiment has been tried, and it has failed. It is time to try something else.

From Alastair Crooke's latest piece on Telegram. His idea about a Russo-Chinese guarantee is a good one. I'd thought the same thing.

'How then might Iran be reassured of an end to conflict and an end to the threats of future wars? Iran might only be reassured if some way were to be found to tie American and Israeli hands in respect to further rounds of war on Iran — although how would Israeli hands be tied? Only (presumably) by cutting financial, munitions and intelligence support for Tel Aviv.

'And that would imply firstly ‘revolution’ in the global US-Israeli structural relationship, and secondly, a different President.

'Could an alternative be some sort of Sino-Russian guarantee of direct intervention were there to be further military escalation? Such a prospect would imply a new global concert of powers — an event that would seem premature at this juncture of time with the US engaged in hostilities of various types and on different planes with both China and Russia, which themselves are escalating and not diminishing.'

Boulevardier takes a walk

The tiny Bucur church close to my first apartment when I came to Bucharest might be 17th century or might have been built in 1416 by Mircea the Elder, which would make it even older than the Catholic church where I just went to Mass, the Baratia church - though that was rebuilt in the 1840s. Most think the church of St Anthony is the oldest church here (built when Queen Mary I was on the English throne so not old by our standards).








The tower of the newly built can be seen peeping out in the distance and looks bonny.

ALL this is caused by Israel

The Guardian reports that Iran war has cost Britain £35 billion and threatens its economy with recession.

Europe is losing nearly €500 million a day because of it European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said four days ago. I do not know the figure for Romania.

Germany's unemployment rate reached 6.4%, the highest since the Covid-19 peak, when it reached the same figure.

The EU is the enemy of freedom and has banned these wonderful Iranian Lego videos. This is their latest hit, a plea for peace aimed at Americans.

I should have been a professor but I was too absent minded

Antisemitism in Great Britain is exaggerated, though bad behaviour and worse by Muslims is usually downplayed, as part of the government message pushed by the obedient media

Jews are not unsafe in the UK and antisemitism is not a problem there - how do I know this? Because only some pro-Israel Jews complain about it. Anti-Zionist Jewish activists although they are very antiracist never do and get on fine with Christians and Muslims.

Quotations

"Some fields work in theory but not in practice. Some fields work in practice but not theory. The uniqueness of economics is that it works in neither theory nor practice." Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"If 41 Jews were killed in 24 hours, it would be called the nth worst antisemitic massacre since the holocaust. When 41 Lebanese are killed by Israel in 24 hours, it’s called a ceasefire." Zachary Foster

"If a father is a good father, his kids are probably happy and well cared for. If he's not, they're very screwed up. If an empire is a benevolent empire, its protectorates thrive. And if it's not, they wither. There is no place occupied by Israel currently that is thriving. And that would include the United States not thriving. This is just an obvious observation." Tucker Carlson

The American empire wants to rule the world - but hubris leads to nemesis

Israel has vast influence in the US but the American empire has its own reasons for wanting to control the Middle East, Latin America, North America and to contain or fight China.  

It took me a long time to see that America is the world's enemy. It became obvious in Biden's time but Trump has made that clear to the meagrest intelligence.  

Russia wants to broker peace between America and Iran and may succeed but it will be only a ceasefire. America and Israel are utterly untrustworthy predators.  

I am not sure why Iran would agree to stop the war.

The American empire has its origins with FDR pushing Chamberlain to go to war with Germany and provoking Japan to attack Pearl Harbor and later Truman's creation of Nato.

It's a mistake to imagine that most Romanians are scared of Russia. They are cynics and many or most (less so among the younger graduates) blame America for the war in Ukraine, which shows they are more observant than the British. This is why Calin Georgescu won the first round of the November 2024, an election cancelled by the courts because of his anti Nato views after some pressure from America and France.

These are extracts from a great article by brilliant US analyst  Brian Berlertic. I read explanations like this for the American reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine but it took time fully to understand.

The war on Iran is part of a decades-spanning US project to assume complete control over the Middle East and the oil and gas that is produced and exported from the region. This is not as a means of taking the energy for the United States’ own use but to establish and enhance a US monopoly over energy production and exports from the US itself and from the nations and regions the US is assuming control over.

This includes most recently Venezuela in Latin America. The early 2026 US war of aggression against the Venezuelan state, kidnapping of the Venezuelan president, and taking hostage of the remaining Venezuelan government led to the almost immediate cutting of Venezuelan oil exports to China and the distribution of Venezuelan oil wealth to US corporations.

...All of these preparations are taking place ahead of what the US sees as an inevitable confrontation with China itself – which is ultimately the priority driving US conflict against Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and many other nations in the first place, all as a means of first isolating and containing China before confronting it directly.

Considering the costs Europe and Persian Gulf Arab states are paying for their subordination to the US and their role in hosting and facilitating US wars of aggression in their respective regions of the world, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines are likewise painting targets on themselves ahead of any confrontation with China.

What the US often refers to as “security guarantees” for its “allies” is merely a euphemism for US military occupation, political capture, and control of what are actually proxies — not allies. The purpose of maintaining a global network of proxies from Europe to the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific is specifically to have other nations pay all the costs for US foreign policy, allowing the US to assume any and all benefits solely for itself.

The prospect of US war around the globe continuously escalating in the near to intermediate future is inevitable because the wars taking place now are being fought specifically to prepare for a future confrontation with China itself. For this reason, the prospects of the US arriving at any sort of “peace” deal with Russia or Iran are near zero.

Until the interests driving US foreign policy — including the arms industry, big oil and gas, big tech, the automotive industry, and many others — are displaced around the globe by the alternatives offered by multipolarism, and until the multipolar world can create sufficient deterrence against not only US military aggression but also the economic coercion, political interference, and capture that lead to that aggression, the US will continue to hold global peace, prosperity, and stability hostage to its demands for continued unipolar hegemony over the planet.

Antisemitism is not a big problem in the UK - a Jewish friend told me it is it is the safest country in the world for Jews

Ilana Mercer, a Jewish-American libertarian born in South Africa, pretty conservative, describes Israel as a serial killer state. 

This is the perfect description of modern Israel and the modern USA. 

Instead of giving details of the people killed in the Middle East by the US and Israeli murder sprees, the British media prefer to talk about an incident in which a British Jew was stabbed (not fatally) two days ago in London. 

The suspect had allegedly previously that morning stabbed someone with a Muslim name, so it doesn't sound a politically motivated attack, especially as he had been imprisoned indefinitely in 2008 for stabbing a policeman and his dog.

In any case stabbings are alas frequent in London but the British public is in one of its periodical fits of very selective morality. 

The just surviving Prime Minister Sir K Starmer has described the attack without evidence as antisemitic and he is considering, though pro Palestinian marches are irrelevant, more restrictions on such marches. 

Since a long time ago under Harold Wilson arguably but very much more so starting with Sir Anthony Blair the UK is no longer a free country. 

The ever to be esteemed Caitlin Johnstone explains it all here.

In Australia draconian laws will make reasonable criticism of Israel a crime. France recently threw out an attempt along the same lines.

The EU countries meanwhile criticise Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine and war crimes but not the numerous US-Israeli illegal attacks, invasions and incomparably bigger war crimes. 

Do they think their publics don't notice, despite the manipulated media? 

Yes they do. And to some extent they are right. 

Most people are more interested in celebrities and articles about mounjaro.

Thank God though for the internet, which the EU intends to restrict using child safety as a useful excuse. 

It makes one wish one could go to RT for a view not approved by the CIA, but in the EU and Ukay it is banned, thanks to the Hilda von Ein of our day, Ursula von der Leyen.

Coolidge and Hoover were the last good US Presidents

Had America returned to isolationism in 1991 what a world of pain would have been avoided. September 11 Iraq Iran etc etc etc But now is the time for the Americans to revert to the ideas of Calvin Coolidge, their last good president. "The business of America is business." He wasn't only an isolationist. He had good ideas about immigration and tax cuts too.

Mrs Adelson attacks

 

Miriam Adelson, widow of a Zionist casino owner, who gave Trump campaign $100 million has personally asked him to attack Iran again. Iran is not a threat to the world, she is. In 2016 Trump said because he was rich he didn't need money from donors and was therefore independent of them. 

'The Decisive Victory That Never Was' -- A definitive Israeli account

Alastair Crooke summarises Israeli media revelations about the Mossad plan to overthrow the Iranian government.

[What the Israeli media do not say is that the January riots were instigated by Mossad and the CIA. Many of the people killed were working with Mossad.]

'The Decisive Victory That Never Was' -- A definitive Israeli account

Conflicts Forum edit of strategic perspectives from leading Israeli political & security commentators (translated from the Hebrew press), 28 April 2026
Below is a key analysis published in the Hebrew press by two leading Israeli commentators — Nahum Barnea and Ronen Bergman. Their analysis constitutes a definitive Israeli narrative of events leading to the war on Iran —
“At the end of 40 days of fighting, the operation that was supposed to decide the war with Iran did not take place. Everyone involved in it in Israel is left with a sense of missed opportunity. The question is why it did not happen …”.
“The plan to topple the [Iranian] regime was a central component of the overall war plan, the heart of the plan”.
“Both the political leadership – [Netanyahu] – and senior figures in the security services were freed from the fear of execution. Anyone capable of blowing up thousands of beepers in a single stroke feels they can do anything”.
“The plan aimed for a war in June 2026. By June, preparations would be complete and conditions ripe”.
‘After 100 hours of air operations, the second phase of the plan to topple the Iranian regime was set to begin — first a ground invasion from Iraq by Kurdish militia. Commanders said they intended to reach the Kurdish region of Iran and then, once Iranian Kurds had joined them, to launch a mass march on the capital, Tehran’.
‘Then came the phone call from Ankara … Trump ordered the invasion to be halted hours before the Kurdish forces were due to cross the border … Israel complied’.