Is this letter to the Financial Times true ten years later?

'The Middle East in flames, China expansionist, Europe enfeebled, America ineffective and Russia resurgent' could be written now but many worse things could be tagged on. Trump and Netanyahu have turned out to be much worse than even the FT reading elite. I wish there had been only two failed wars recently.

Sir, Your pages overflow with predictions of disaster brought on by the Brexit/Trump axis. Leaving aside the depressing and repetitive pointlessness of this mass guesswork, its underlying assumption — that things were better when People Like Us were in charge — is at best dubious, at worst delusional. Under PLU rule, we have two failed wars and the Middle East in flames, China expansionist, Europe enfeebled, America ineffective and Russia resurgent. At home, we have banking crises, stagnant median incomes, uncontrolled borders, record indebtedness, profiteering by the “professional” classes, and general social polarisation. This is the Eden from which the rude and licentious electorates have expelled us? 

Face it. We FT readers had our decades in charge and we blew it for everyone but us. Time for us to do what we’ve been telling the rest of them to do for years, and suck it up. Or go forth and earn the respect that regains power. 

Keith Craig London SW7, UK 

Dec 16, 2016

Davin Ellicson, an American photographer who lives in Bucharest, took this

 

Yes

 

Are they in the room with us now?

The cartoon is from the New York Times. The cartoonist is Bill Bramhall. Actually some sort of negotiations might be happening. We don't know. 

The USA after the Cold War ended

 

“Created by wars that required it, the machine now created the wars it required.”

“There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome's allies; and if Rome had no allies, then allies would be invented. When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest—why, then it was the national honor that had been insulted. The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors, always fighting for a breathing space. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies, and it was manifestly Rome's duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs. They were enemies who only waited to fall on the Roman people.”
Joseph Alois Schumpeter, Imperialism and Social Classes (1919)

The Mossad CIA MI6 plot to create an Iranian revolution caused a lot of Kurdish and Baluchi fighters and Mossad assets to be killed

Mossad was impatient and thousands of their people died. They would have been useful now to the Israel-USA hippogriff, but I am pretty confident that the Iranian government was anyway too strong. 

Max Blumenthal:

NY Times has essentially confirmed that Israel played a role in stimulating the violent regime change riots that left around 3000 dead in Iran this January 8 and 9, but which were marketed in the West as pro-democracy protests.


It was well understood by the Mossad that those riots would help stimulate military action by Trump.


Israeli intel merely needed to convince the feeble-minded president that a wave of decapitation strikes would unleash a massive upheaval to immediately topple the Islamic Republic. The January riots were presented to Trump as a preview of what was to come.


Western media, including the NY Times and The Guardian, played a central role in legitimizing Israel's deception by falsely characterizing the violent regime change riots as mere protests, massively inflating the death toll and covering up the fact that many were murdered by the Israel-backed rioters themselves


The whole of Western media and the Western human rights industrial complex deliberately misrepresented the real character of those riots. But now that the war they helped to instigate is going badly for the US and Israel, that same media is now free to reveal a few kernels of truth.

MB is right about the outrageous role of Western media. In fact thanks to the Russians showing the Iranians how To hack Star Link the intended revolution did not happen. 

We do not know if Israel knew there would not be an uprising if the top leaders were killed but it seems the head of Mossed did think there would. 

Israel does not care so long as they have a war between the USA and Iran and the latter is defeated. 

Yes Trump is showing many signs of a deteriorating mind on top of whatever psychological disorders he may have had before.

I watched the former head of MI6 last night say the Iranian government machine gunned up to 10,000 people in January and this long-term dooms the regime. That's much less than the 30,000 journalists quote which comes from a NED front organisation, meaning from the Americans. 

I am not convinced. I think the people killed were mostly Mossad CIA assets and there is no real evidence to the contrary. 

He said he had spent many years fighting the IRGC. I suppose they really have become a threat to Great Britain. Heads of MI6 see things in terms of threats like generals do. Most Muslim terrorists have been Sunni, of course, like the new government in Syria that England gets on well with.

Many  British and American conservatives cheer on this wicked, unjust war and many Americans see Trump as a hero. What on earth does this have to do with Great Britain or Europe, beyond requiring our strong condemnation? 

I have no idea but I have been in Romania since the 1990s. 

I can only think people, went mad on 11 September 2001 and see themselves as at war with all Islamic extremists, though allies with some extremists ad hoc. 

It is obvious that Israel is the threat to peace not Iran but they cannot see that. 

It is very worrying but great is the truth and shall prevail - except it very often does not prevail. People believe all sorts of legends that they mistake for history: about Washington, Lincoln, Chamberlain and Churchill and on and on.

Clown show

 From Larry Johnson's new site, which you should visit.

Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez: Iran has spent 40 years preparing for this war. It will be very much worse than Iraq.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez decided to naturalise 500,000 immigrants recently. I do not have much good to say about the man but I agree with what he said today to the Cortes. 

He warned that Iran has spent 40 years for preparing for this war. It will be very much worse than Iraq.

"This is not the same scenario as the illegal war in Iraq. We are facing something far worse. Much worse. With a potential impact that is far broader and far deeper. This time, it's an absurd and illegal war. A cruel one that sets us back from achieving our economic, social, and environmental goals."

I am not concerned about economic, social and environmental goals. Politicians shouldn't have many goals beyond good governance and low taxes, but avoiding war is one. Not aiding countries that start unjust wars is another.

What They Said

"But the weird thing about this fantasy is the fantasy seems to change minute by minute. I mean George Bush and the Iraq War, that was a fantasy. But it was a coherent fantasy. I mean it all went a cropper of course. But they had outlined this. They were just wrong in all of their assumptions, but Trump doesn't even seem to have any assumptions. And they could change. I'm sure they will change today. Where are we at this morning? This morning we're at he's going to negotiate. Except he doesn't know who he's going to negotiate with. Nor does he know what he's going to negotiate. What does he want? What would we take? What would they give? None of this is clear, except that they have a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, which could have been anticipated." 

Michael Wolff

"Christ will return... Will he be a supporter of the criminal killers who shed the blood of millions of people in order to have power over oil, money and markets? Or will he be a supporter of the weak, the poor, the maltreated and the oppressed?" 

Hezbollah leader Nasrallah

“…I ought to urge publicly what I have vainly urged on Israeli friends many times, namely that Israel could make no greater contribution to the safety of its own future and to the peace of the world than by offering Jerusalem as the common capital of a Palestine Federation…amounting, at least at first, to little more than common defence and a free trade union…” 

Hayek

"Christians and Hezbollah unite against 'Epstein empire'". The very pro-Israeli Daily Telegraph published this off-message news story but then took it down. I found it and publish it here.

Did the newspaper receive a call from MI6 or the Foreign Office or even the Israeli Embassy?


Fortunately it is still available via MSN here and I copied it below in case they take it down from MSN and Yahoo News.







The complexity of Lebanon is apparent in few places more than Ras Baalbek, a Catholic Christian town in Lebanon’s northern Bekaa Valley close to the borders with Syria.

The town, which boasts two Byzantine churches, has teamed up with Hezbollah in a bid to preserve its heritage and protect its 6,000 devout Catholic residents.

So close are the two communities that the Iranian-backed militant group buys a Christmas tree each year for the village.

“The relationship between the village and Hezbollah is stronger than with the Pope,” Rifiat Nasrallah, 60, a quarryman and village leader whose marble sarcophagi line the village cemetery, told The Telegraph during a visit in the midst of war.

British opinion about the Iran war -most say a plague on both their houses

12% of British people and 7% of Conservatives sympathise more with Iran, 19% more with the Israelis and Americans. 

22% of American Republicans and 93% of Democrats disapprove of the US strikes on Iran. I wonder if the question were phrased like that how British Conservatives would answer. 

I also wonder how anyone can approve of these strikes.

Bad news

This is the most extraordinary and worrying war I have seen in a long lifetime following politics obsessively. 

Everything is different now. 

It is possible that the United States will be forced to leave the Middle East which would be good for every country in the world including the US, Israel excepted. 

But can Israel and their Saudi ally prevent this? 

In any case financial Armageddon looks likely. 

Will Europeans leave Nato or are they too frightened of the Russian bugbear? A bugbear that is the product of, to put it very mildly, inept American diplomacy. 

Nato as we know protects Nato members from the dangers created by belonging to Nato, rather as America protects the Middle East from dangers created by America protecting it.

Trump wants to obliterate something but it may be he obliterates American global rule. 

History is full of such ironies, as Gibbon knew.

The Economist:

Even if Donald Trump and Iran reached a deal to stop fighting tomorrow, it would thus be another four months before markets regained some semblance of normality. Producers elsewhere cannot crank up output fast enough to recover past losses. The result is to shave off some 3% of planned global oil production this year. Every month Ras Laffan stays shut, the world loses around 7m tonnes of lng—nearly 2% of projected annual supply. And full capacity will, owing to the latest strikes, be lower than before. The upshot is that production will fall 4% short of demand this year even if Qatar started pumping what it can today.
The implications are stark. Global crude stocks, on course to end March in the bottom third of their historical range, will also keep dwindling for weeks after Hormuz reopens. As countries with thin buffers run out, they could trigger bouts of panic-buying and price spikes. Bidding wars for lng are equally likely. The last cargoes from Qatar to leave before Hormuz closed will reach Asia and Europe in days, says Ashley Sherman of Vortexa, a ship-tracker. After that, buyers must seek supplies elsewhere or go without, jeopardising the restocking of reserves for winter (see chart 4).
Oil and gas traders are still banking on a spring miracle. The world is praying for one. But even if Mr Trump and Iran’s ayatollahs grant this wish, the logistics of oil and gas will not be easily appeased. Energy markets will be living with the war’s fallout well into northern winter.


Fred Weir:
Through the hurricanes of bluster, and jungle of utterly contradictory statements, it's becoming more obvious with each passing hour that Trump is in way over his head, and has no idea what to do. This is better than his previous threat to "devastate" Iran, but solves nothing. And it's likely that neither Iran nor Trump's wag-the-dog ally Netanyahu will even let this dodge play out.

Alan Dershowitz, Epstein's lawyer and friend: 

"This is the most important war since 1939, since Nazi Germany. Had President Trump been in charge in 1935, 1936, I think the Holocaust would have been prevented."

General Stanley McChrystal in an interview in the New York Times: 'If you like this war enjoy this first part, because this is the best part'

"I tell people about this war, if you like this war enjoy this first part, because this is the best part. Because everything after this will be harder."

"There are three great seductions that happen to American administrations and to the military.

Historian David Gibbs is convincing on the reason for the Iranian war

Talking on Neutrality Studies he reminds us that Trump is only following the policy of his predecessors in seeing Iran as an enemy. Why did they?

"And so they [the US] were looking for an enemy and Iran was one of multiple enemies. Russia obviously, China is another enemy, Arab terrorism defined very broadly as an enemy and all of these I think didn't come out of nowhere. I mean obviously there's a psychological need for a bogeyman for a simple explanation for all our problems. I suppose that but I don't like psychological explanations. I think there were material interests here and the material interests were to find some justification for this enormous military the United States had, and it was only slightly downsized after the Cold War, to find a justification for hundreds of overseas bases, again which had no function if the Soviet Union was gone but it needed a function. They had to find a function. There were fleets around the world. There was, you know, the the security apparatus, the CIA and all the other agencies."

Interestingly, he says he refuses to mention the Arab-Israel conflict in his classes for fear of being penalised as a result of complaints by pro-Israel students and the Israel lobby.

Larry Johnson thinks Iran has been more sinned against than sinning, going back to the Iran-Iraq war which the US sponsored

This is worth half an hour of your time.

Johnson is former CIA, intelligent and trustworthy. He talks about the CIA attempt at a colour revolution in Iran in December 2025 and January 2026, like the one in Kiev in 2014.

From what Max Blumenthal and many others say, the people Iran killed were mostly assets of the CIA and Mossad but Western journalists believe the CIA story.

They display a sublime lack of scepticism which ill befits journalists, but you see this all the time with most things. I do not really understand it.

America calls Iran the world's biggest sponsor of terrorism but it's not true unless you are thinking of Hamas and Hezbollah attacking Israelis which is part of the Arab-Israel conflict.

Hamas and Hezbollah were certainly subsidised by Iran though Hamas was subsidised by Netanyahu too and he built it up to sideline Fatah. Hezbollah was created by Iran. Still, Hamas and Hezbollah are not Iranian proxies but Iranian allies.

The distinction is very important.

Larry Johnson says that America and Israel are much bigger sponsors of terrorism. He also repeats the story of the US backing Saddam's invasion of Iran which killed 3 million Iranians including 300,000 by chemical weapons.

My question. What is the killing of almost fifty Iranian leaders in what had been till that moment peacetime but terrorism?

This is a serious question, gentle reader.

3 days after starting the war it was apparent to thoughtful people that America would lose it badly

Sadly most of the world will too, Iran and her friends excepted.

“Why would Israel say something that is not true?”

BBC star TV presenter and former political editor Laura Kuenssberg asked a British minister yesterday “Why would Israel say something that is not true?” after he contradicted the country’s claim that Iran has missiles capable of hitting London.

Yet some people claim the BBC is biassed against Israel.

"I don't think Israel has a future as a society because it is built on death."

"I don't think Israel has a future as a society because it is built on death."

"I believe in the American people just as I believe in the Iranian people. I cannot believe in the Israeli people because 97% of them approve of genocide."

This is Israeli Professor Haim Bresheeth talking to the wonderful Katie Halper. 

He says Trump dislikes war but Israel is blackmailing him.

Trump (who was 'a failure as a businessman') is obviously blackmailable. Who doubts that?

I recommend this podcast. 

Well said

"Iran is exercising its legitimate right to defend its sovereignty, its people, and its resources, after being subjected to blatant aggression”. I hope nobody disagrees with these words of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the French left-wing party.

The British Daily Telegraph pointed out that he condemned Hamas's "war crimes" on 7 October 2023 without using the word terrorism. If he is the next French president, as is very possible, I expect he would obey America just like all his recent predecessors. 

Chirac looks a great man for pleading with America not to invade Iran.

Curious Houthis

“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

I draw you attention to the curious incident of the Houthis in the Red Sea who can stop Saudi Arabia exporting almost 4 million barrels of oil per day (out of the roughly 9.5 million barrels she produced before the war).