By Pepe Escobar – with permission and cross-posted with Strategic Culture Foundation
Sooner or later the US “maximum pressure” on Iran would inevitably be met by “maximum counter-pressure”. Sparks are ominously bound to fly.
For the past few days, intelligence circles across Eurasia had been prodding Tehran to consider a quite straightforward scenario. There would be no need to shut down the Strait of Hormuz if Quds Force commander, General Qasem Soleimani, the ultimate Pentagon bête noire, explained in detail, on global media, that Washington simply does not have the military capacity to keep the Strait open.
As I previously reported, shutting down the Strait of Hormuz would destroy the American economy by detonating the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market; and that would collapse the world banking system, crushing the world’s $80 trillion GDP and causing an unprecedented depression.
Soleimani should also state bluntly that Iran may in fact shut down the Strait of Hormuz if the nation is prevented from exporting essential two million barrels of oil a day, mostly to Asia. Exports, which before illegal US sanctions and de facto blockade would normally reach 2.5 million barrels a day, now may be down to only 400,000.
Soleimani’s intervention would align with consistent signs already coming from the IRGC. The Persian Gulf is being described as an imminent “shooting gallery.” Brigadier General Hossein Salami stressed that Iran’s ballistic missiles are capable of hitting “carriers in the sea” with pinpoint precision. The whole northern border of the Persian Gulf, on Iranian territory, is lined up with anti-ship missiles – as I confirmed with IRGC-related sources.
We’ll let you know when it’s closed
Then, it happened.
Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Baqeri, went straight to the point; “If the Islamic Republic of Iran were determined to prevent export of oil from the Persian Gulf, that determination would be realized in full and announced in public, in view of the power of the country and its Armed Forces.”
The facts are stark. Tehran simply won’t accept all-out economic war lying down – prevented to export the oil that protects its economic survival. The Strait of Hormuz question has been officially addressed. Now it’s time for the derivatives.
Presenting detailed derivatives analysis plus military analysis to global media would force the media pack, mostly Western, to go to Warren Buffett to see if it is true. And it is true. Soleimani, according to this scenario, should say as much and recommend that the media go talk to Warren Buffett.
The extent of a possible derivatives crisis is an uber-taboo theme for the Washington consensus institutions. According to one of my American banking sources, the most accurate figure – $1.2 quadrillion – comes from a Swiss banker, off the record. He should know; the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) – the central bank of central banks – is in Basle.
The key point is it doesn’t matter how the Strait of Hormuz is blocked.
It could be a false flag. Or it could be because the Iranian government feels it’s going to be attacked and then sinks a cargo ship or two. What matters is the final result; any blocking of the energy flow will lead the price of oil to reach $200 a barrel, $500 or even, according to some Goldman Sachs projections, $1,000.
Another US banking source explains; “The key in the analysis is what is called notional. They are so far out of the money that they are said to mean nothing. But in a crisis the notional can become real. For example, if I buy a call for a million barrels of oil at $300 a barrel, my cost will not be very great as it is thought to be inconceivable that the price will go that high. That is notional. But if the Strait is closed, that can become a stupendous figure.”
BIS will only commit, officially, to indicate the total notional amount outstanding for contracts in derivatives markers is an estimated $542.4 trillion. But this is just an estimate.
The banking source adds, “Even here it is the notional that has meaning. Huge amounts are interest rate derivatives. Most are notional but if oil goes to a thousand dollars a barrel, then this will affect interest rates if 45% of the world’s GDP is oil. This is what is called in business a contingent liability.”
Goldman Sachs has projected a feasible, possible $1,000 a barrel a few weeks after the Strait of Hormuz being shut down. This figure, times 100 million barrels of oil produced per day, leads us to 45% of the $80 trillion global GDP. It’s self-evident the world economy would collapse based on just that alone.
War dogs barking mad
As much as 30% of the world’s oil supply transits the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Wily Persian Gulf traders – who know better – are virtually unanimous; if Tehran was really responsible for the Gulf of Oman tanker incident, oil prices would be going through the roof by now. They aren’t.
Iran’s territorial waters in the Strait of Hormuz amount to 12 nautical miles (22 km). Since 1959, Iran recognizes only non-military naval transit.
Since 1972, Oman’s territorial waters in the Strait of Hormuz also amount to 12 nautical miles. At its narrowest, the width of the Strait is 21 nautical miles (39 km). That means, crucially, that half of the Strait of Hormuz is in Iranian territorial waters, and the other half in Oman’s. There are no “international waters”.
And that adds to Tehran now openly saying that Iran may decide to close the Strait of Hormuz publicly – and not by stealth.
Iran’s indirect, asymmetric warfare response to any US adventure will be very painful. Prof. Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran once again reconfirmed, “even a limited strike will be met by a major and disproportionate response.” And that means gloves off, big time; anything from really blowing up tankers to, in Marandi’s words, “Saudi and UAE oil facilities in flames”.
Hezbollah will launch tens of thousands of missiles against Israel. As Hezbollah’s secretary-general Hasan Nasrallah has been stressing in his speeches, “war on Iran will not remain within that country’s borders, rather it will mean that the entire [Middle East] region will be set ablaze. All of the American forces and interests in the region will be wiped out, and with them the conspirators, first among them Israel and the Saudi ruling family.”
It’s quite enlightening to pay close attention to what this Israel intel op is saying. The dogs of war though are barking mad.
Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo jetted to CENTCOM in Tampa to discuss “regional security concerns and ongoing operations” with – skeptical – generals, a euphemism for “maxim pressure” eventually leading to war on Iran.
Iranian diplomacy, discreetly, has already informed the EU – and the Swiss – about their ability to crash the entire world economy. But still that was not enough to remove US sanctions.
We are in deep doo-doo.
Must say publicly. Maybe then wiser heads in D.C. will prevail on Trump. Although AIPAC is so strong, maybe not. Of course maybe US banks on the high side of derivatives, $200 will make them money. After all after big score, bankers can turn around and buy stocks in secretly depressed US economy. Might be one term Presidency, but trump and his billionaire friends could score big.
Pepe has just summed up in this article just how important it is for Donald Trump and his gang of 3 to understand just how deeply serious this situation is – but as usual they just buckle down and have declared more sanctions on Monday.
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201906221076023226-trump-announces-new-sanctions-against-iran-to-take-effect-on-monday/
“Earlier in the day, Trump announced that a military action against Tehran was still on the table after Iran downed a US drone. The statement follows a separate announcement from the president, in which he stated that another round of anti-Iran sanctions is expected to be implemented as a means of preventing Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon.
Donald Trump turned to Twitter to announce that new sanctions against Iran would be imposed on 24 June……..”
It seems Israel thinks it can get everyone else to fight its fights – but as Pepe mentions above – Israel will be dragged into this fight too. The whole Middle East will burn and all the world economies will be severely damaged.
War is what the West needs and wants to hide their financial mess and collapse. They are barking mad!
Sanctions as vicious as those imposed by Thanatopia on Iran are acts of war. That the Thanatopians have the unmitigated viciousness to force the rest of the world to follow these sanctions as they kill Iranians and make millions of others suffer, is Evil that invites comparison with anything that the Nazis did. If you protest and mention the tens of millions deliberately murdered by the Nazis, I would answer with the tens of millions deliberately murdered by the USA since WW2, not just through military aggression, but through this sort of economic warfare, not just by sanctions but by ‘structural adjustment’ policies and other society-destroying and child-murdering measures imposed by the economic hit-men of the ‘Washington Consensus’.
Let’s hope Pepe has crossed all the “t”s and dotted all the “i” in this report.
Even so, there’s a reason for the adage, “The Fog of War” that looms large in history. What seems an excellent method in circumventing the US, could turn out to be a huge mess.
Even though Pepe explains what would happen with the world market, just remember, the US will not allow its Hegemonic $$$ go up in flames………The ferocity of it retaliating would be IMMENSE.
Ever consider that the Cabal Plan….may be to sacrifice the expendable US Colony in its present form, including its toilet paper money ………….for the longer term survival of the Older Empire, Rowena?
London Paul releases rare free public content today particularly aimed at the easily duped flag wavers in the Alt-Media………that just don’t “get it”…..yet, much to their and everyone else’s peril:
https://youtu.be/Y3Rs-ZAa28I under 7 minutes Strait to the Point. Pun(s) intended, of course.
I recall Bibi being quoted as saying exactly that, that USA was there to be used up and discarded by the chosenites at their pleasure. I have seen it quoted several times but cannot recall the context. Perhaps someone more inclined to remember details can recall it?
That is what makes a parasite a parasite. They never leave their hosts better off.
The Groper-in-Chief just repeated Clinton’s threat to ‘obliterate’ Iran. It must be Bibi and the Talmudists preferred translation from the religious tracts that demand the genocide of Zion’s enemies ‘down to the last suckling child’. Such threats, we should not forget, are a major crime in and of themselves.
The price of oil itself is not an actual market driven price, but is based on speculation.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/How-Oil-Prices-Are-Held-Hostage-By-Derivatives.html
“Unfortunately, that’s what really determines the price of oil – financial transactions involving oil derivatives, not the trade in oil itself.”
If you actually believe that the price of oil is determined supply and demand, you are very mistaken.
Every single market, in currencies, stocks, bonds, commodities etc is rigged by the financial parasites. For every ounce of gold, for instance. there are ten or more ‘ounces’ of options, derivatives and ‘paper gold’. And for this Evil, metastatic, farrago, we are destroying the only example of Life that we know of anywhere in the Universe. Evil cannot come any greater than that.
It is getting more difficult to distinguish the player from the playee-trump has asserted prob quite correctly that bolton was played on venezula. Now it appears that trump and the admin itself was played by that odious org MEK. According to this article from Intercept, an article written by fictious MEK author was used at least partially to justify pulling out of the nuc deal with Iran:
_________________________________
https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/heshmat-alavi-fake-iran-mek/
IN 2018, PRESIDENT Donald Trump was seeking to jettison the landmark nuclear deal that his predecessor had signed with Iran in 2015, and he was looking for ways to win over a skeptical press. The White House claimed that the nuclear deal had allowed Iran to increase its military budget, and Washington Post reporters Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly asked for a source. In response, the White House passed along an article published in Forbes by a writer named Heshmat Alavi.
“Iran’s current budget is funded largely through ‘oil, taxes, increasing bonds, [and] eliminating cash handouts or subsidies’ for Iranians, according to an article by a Forbes contributor, Heshmat Alavi, sent to us by a White House official,” Rizzo and Kelly reported. The White House had used Alavi’s article — itself partly drawn from Iranian sources — to justify its decision to terminate the agreement.
“Heshmat Alavi is a persona run by a team of people from the political wing of the MEK. This is not and has never been a real person.”
There’s a problem, though: Heshmat Alavi appears not to exist. Alavi’s persona is a propaganda operation run by the Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e-Khalq, which is known by the initials MEK, two sources told The Intercept.
_____________________________
Additional detail on the subversive activities of MEK are provided in this article:
_____________________________
https://lobelog.com/mek-impunity-undermining-americas-democracy/
_____________________________________________
And we know from many reports that bolton is up to his eyeballs in MEK activities. It is not complicated to see how all of this MEK crap gets into the white house.
MEK Has No Followers In IRAN or ABROAD (please stop using all caps – its screaming. Some changed. Mod.) MEK leader, Masoud Rajavi, was killed by the USG after invasion of Iraq where kept it secret for many years. They used Rajavi and then turned 180 degrees and kill him to bury their SECRETS, like their agent Bin Ladin.
MEK is not an alternative, only a NAME that is funded by Saudi Arabia to pass $$$$ to Neocon, to keep Iran enemies alive.
The money is given to traitors and zionist fifth columnists like Bolton, Rudy Giuliani, the sell out, to buy a pair of shoe or spent it for divorce case, for example Jiuliani.
Don’t waste you time by mentioning MEK. MEK has no place among Iranians and is hated by all in Iran and abroad, the same as Trump, Bolton and Pompeo, all members of Jewish mafia baby killers.
MEK and the Jewish mafia is so desperate that have constructed a campaign of DISINFORMATION. The following site is another FAKE news by USG disinformation site:
https://limacharlienews.com/mena/iranian-crackdown-mek/
Another outstanding article by Pepe Escobar.
We should not look at the crisis between Iran and the US in isolation. It just happens to be the current focal point where the determination by the US empire for world conquest has reached maximum, though localized, resistance.
Probably it’s because of Israel that that the thrust of conquest is proceeding through that particular segment of the Middle East. Iran was next up for conquest following the 9/11 false flag. Big problem, though: Syria did not fall to the US nor did Lebanon. So the US/Israel have no security in their rear.
They are terribly exposed vis-a-vis Iran. They really do fear losing a war against Iran that must draw in Russia and China, the empire’s long-term enemies.
I do believe the military therefore knows an attack may be suicidal in the long-term. They may have decided to draw a line that leaves Iran out of the conquest plan and try to make the best of things incrementally but without all-out war.
If you look at CNN, it appears that the CIA controllers have reined in the Neocon crazies. Perhaps they have accepted that the empire has reached its limits.
I am hopeful.
There are times when I almost wish tRUMP had let his idiots attack Iran, and that Iran and their allies would blow the whole mess up.
Then, the truly cynical me thinks about how the consequences of what would take place just might do what tRUMP said in the last (so-called) election: get out of all of the wars. The Iranian ability to mess up US Navy assets and our ‘allies’ (Israel and Saudi Arabia) could certainly do that.
Nah …
I hope?
The oil market is inelastic. Oil demand varies very little with price. More precisely, it takes a very long time for demand to vary with price, because energy is irreplaceable and it entails a lot of costly capital to replace consumption of oil. Of course, a global depression can also adjust demand: the likely scenario of a sharp drop in the global supply of oil, after it’s price shoots up.
The inelastic oil market is the main reason why investors endlessly speculate on the oil price.
Hence, and contrary to what Trump has said, if the strait of Hormuz is blocked the oil price will jump up considerably (certainly above $200/barrel), and the whole world (including the US) would bound to suffer. In addition, due to the many outstanding derivative bets on the oil market, such oil shock can easily crash the financial markets. Moreover, inflation in the commodities market will readily pick up, and it will be a matter of time before consumer inflation and credit interest rates also go up.
Hence, Western countries may suffer too much, too fast. The potential for political upheaval is enormous: a really ominous prospect for the rulers, because after such economic blunder by Trump, the only practical solution could be Bernie Sanders (that is, F.D.Roosevelt number 2).
Due to this, I think, Trump has tasked the Pentagon to find a way to prevent Iran from closing Hormuz. For otherwise, this conflict will stalemate (again). Obama had already reached the conclusion that this kind of stalemate has been detrimental to the West. Trump surely knows this, that’s why he bets all chips on regime changing Iran.
Interest rates cannot increase in the USA. Even at the current ludicrously low levels, interest on the US Government debt last year was 500 billion or so. The death-spiral beckons. And there are already 11 to 12 trillion or so of bonds, globally, that attract NEGATIVE interest rates, an inconceivable possibility even a few years ago.
“Interest rates cannot increase in the USA. Even at the current ludicrously low levels, interest on the US Government debt last year was 500 billion or so.”
True, interest paid to the Federal Reserve last year (560 billion) is a huge burden and an increase in the rates will increase that burden. But only if the country in question is another, other than the “exceptional one”. It does not matter much anyway, they just shift the burden to the 20-odd trillion debt account to keep the merry-go-round going on while the whole world sustains the dollar hegemony as a reserve and trade currency. As you certainly know (this is for the man on the Clapham bus) the US debt is unpayable and is kept by the fiction of its being a valuable commodity, when in fact it is worthless. Needless to say that the derivatives market is part of the financial skulduggery that prop up this gigantic fraud where everyone on earth is paying for the profligacy and wars of the ZionUS parasite.
The parasite’s survival depends on keeping control of the oil trade flow, hence the need to keep countries such as Iran and Venezuela in shackles and tenterhooks (sanctions, boycotts, blockades). What has saved Iran so far is not only its arsenal of missiles, but also the consequences on the oil trade and dollar.
Trade Wars are coward’s wars, Iran won’t close the Straits of Hormuz.
I was checking your numbers and your thought process and fortunately is in the imagination sphere.
The closing of Hormuz can’t do much of a damage to the global economy. What you are writing are wild dreams.
Of course, there will be a pressure in the oil prices but this pressure will be maximum around the 20-25$ increase in prices in the short term (and in mid-term prices will drop down to normal again ).
The catastrophic scenario you describing needs a lot more factors to take place. It needs an actual full-scale cross war in all region. It needs a lot of oil sources been destroyed in many regional countries to push oil prices to what you describe and start a global economic domino effect… (In reality, needs a full-scale war where IRAN is winning hard over the US and their allies… these are wild dreams, my friend…)
If this were true then Iran would have long ago been regime changed. The Empire is afraid of *something* and hence has been dragging it’s feet on attacking Iran despite Israel’s tantrums and pressure to get it done.
I think you are more realistic, I mean I agree with you: the Great Parasite ZionUS fears something more than the Iranian missiles if one takes into account its abominable record of spreading death and devastation against other countries from Dresden and Hiroshima to Iraq and Syria. It is not the millions of victims in Iran that is deterring the ZionUs Ogre from detonating nukes on Iranian people.
‘…Sending seriously mixed messages’ could make the already-dangerous situation even worse. Tehran will wonder how it should respond. But President Trump could find himself with a dilemma: continue to back down and lose face or launch war against Iran. If he can be convinced that he can attack without the complication of drawing in Russia and China it could the blind strategy that leads to world war three.
I would have expected Russia and China to make their voices heard somehow, by now. In the end, Iran is a centrepiece of the Silk Road Initiative, apart from all the oil Iran exports to China.
Are they too afraid by now, given how obviously batshit crazy the folks in the beltway are?
Or are R+C in the end almost as unhappy with Iran’s strides as they are with Washington’s?
Would Iran not have all reason to feel betrayed by her allies?
China shall intervene when the time is ripe.
China would have no choice other than supporting Iran itf the situation turn into hot war.
That is why Trump cas à losing hand in current stand off with Iran.
If the situation escalate the US cas much to lose in term of war loss, lost influence and economy…
That is tremondous risk for the defense of non core interest.
Iran is in opposite situation. If Iran yield that would de the end of the resistance axis.
Therefire in game theory the US Will need to yield and will lose dramatically.
If the US do not yield that will be WIII.
Simple.
Now it will be interesting to see how the idiot Trump will extricate himself from the corner the B team painted him into.
Ch will resist to intervene… and fall into their set-trap of problem-reaction-solution…
Thats why asymmetric is a good way round the perception-management narrative
Most ppl are not able to think pass the headlines (or think at all) or first visual picture-news
They still assume gov are the force of good and CANNOT BE EVIL
They fail to realise, gov are just a bunch of ppl, with certain characteristic… There are no angels there!
That said, if the west is ‘gone’ enough to launch ‘THE SHOW’
In the east…
Any and all permanent or LT outpost surrounding Ch will be immediately be of interest
Any floating coffins will be of ‘interested’
Any alien technology toys will also be interesting
‘THE SHOW’, if launch, is a ONE WAY ticket.
They know the east is ‘starving the beast’ and they know they aint got physical
Anything digital and out in space, they know they have lost to Ch multiple quantum computers and Rus sky-net
Instead of the MSnarrative, i think, they choked, when they heard RU top range naval was on her way to Iran on the same day the drone got shoot down… They saw, unmistakably, the east is prepared and coming!
Trap within a trap?!! God knows what else is under the seas, in the sky and outer space?!!!
Thats why I think, there may be a good chance, they will burn down the casino, rather than show the last (losing) card.
RT – New US doctrine claims it could win nuclear war if engaged
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb2TMAFVEvM
If you want to know what is inside the Joker’s head, you’ve got to think like the Joker.
Just a batshitcrazy thought (thinking like the opposition)…
We don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. It is quite probable that China or Russia might have drawn a red line and conveyed the message quietly to the ZionUS’s den. In the days of the USSR Iran could confidently rely on Russia’s support, but not Putin’s Russia’s.
In fact all this speculation and suspense could easily be resolved with a simple simultaneous public announcement by China and Russia to the effect that an attack on Iran would not be tolerated and consequent measures taken against the agressor. Just the public threat would be enough to snuff the warmongers.
Remember that both WWs came to a head on the back of many secret conspirational diplomatic meetings ostensibly designed to keep the peace but led to the inevitable war because of secrecy.
Agree – Putin’s Russia’s is a totally different beast –
but using the template of ‘price tag’, what would be the cost to Putin’s Russia’s if he and his leadership team chose ‘the other’ alternatives?
The east obviously has their thing going on… a crash right now in the month of Jun 2019, (think star-chart cosmology) would be disruptive as best, worse, the ‘price tag’ could be irrecoverable – and we all will be using the NEW AND IMPROVED rainbow one-world-money the day after …
That what happened to the east at the Asian financial crisis btw – ppl wake up the next day and a can of coke soar to $20,000 – great work by the west with the giant sucking sound!!!
We remember and we are still living under that ‘consequence’!
I absolutely respect Trump, even in his madness of methods, at least he is honourable, but his right hand and left hand are not, well, co-coordinating. Its like his hands are not his own. For a start, Brenant is still not removed from the military privy. Who’s he KING maker here? What then, is stopping his own right hand and left hand to choke him to oblivion?!
If you could get rid of the troublemakers on your turf, that would be super and ideal!!!
But if you can’t get rid of them, what should we do about that?! Are we, the east, those who survived, now into the 4th generation since WWII, still be ‘not living our dream’ and forever in perpetuity, under ‘the consequence’?!
So much so you can comfortably retire in the east even if you are broke in the west… and the ppl on the streets who serve you while you are on the LT vacation here can’t even feed their family well…
Maybe its your turn to pay $20,000 for a can of coke?!
We have been paying that ‘price tag’ for quite a very long while now, dear friends of the west….
They say the earth is round and not flat… Should I dare to believe that?!!
Just another perspective from the east…
p/s I am aware this is a very sensitive and difficult HONEST ADULT conversation. Please be safe.
Trump ‘honourable’?????? Just ask the thousands of workers, contractors and former business associates that he has cheated and dudded over the decades. ‘?’ indeed!
HA HA :D
Fair enough… CORRECTION: appear as ‘honourable’ – at least still in the international MSM… he seems to be still trying rather than outright doing the 3 letter agency dirty dogs deep secret trench work… At home land – It appears he is risking the ‘Kenndy treatment’ – that part is ‘honourable’… until history, may one day, if that be so, shows otherwise…
And since you seems to care and concern much about the news around this is perhaps something that you might have missed – Like the Monica-Moment “I just stood there’ Show was to hide something else far more grievous going in the background… as they did again, same one trick-pony-show, with ‘P..A..T..R..1..0..T..’ A.C..T.-.ng? God knows what barry did too with that same one-trick-pony formula. Have you check out (C.A.T.H.E.R.1.N.E.-A.U.S.T.I.N_F..1.T.TS)-(F.A.S.A.B_5.6)? The implication there is – The State has finally declare outright bankrupt…
and here we are ‘STILL HERE’… mostly uninformed and still largely unaware the REAL reality TV…
thus my quiet reservation of “one day, if that be so, shows otherwise” when the ‘honourable’ title is undoubtably utterly shameful
Murky waters indeed…
Be safe.
btw remember DTS???!
we will find out who they REALLY meant to be the “S” that got drained… (aka the “S” is non-human class by their internal classification – sounds farmiliar by particular regime?)
they have never fail to kepp that very s@t@n1c way of dark humour…
if be true…
Thanks for your concern. Just why do you think that Trump, a con-man and business crook turned ‘reality TV’ demagogue, who accidentally won the Presidency after the DNC put up the worst possible candidate, has any idea what he is doing. His actions to destroy the environment alone are utterly insane and wicked.
MM, I am just trying to appear kind and not burst the bubbles of those others that are still M@g@… or god forbid the Qute… In the east – after some 5,000 yrs – we learned – there are no good emperor! Period. That’s why we do business (with everyone) and try to keep our (extended) family alive, as much as possible, under the heaven mandate! I see there are lots of good thinking ppl here – I am hopeful and dreadful of the changes that are coming which will make 812 looks like appetiser… May your god be for you and not against you. Be safe there MM.
Thanks ?. I can think of one or two ‘good emperors’. Napoleon, Augustus, Hadrian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius and Vespasian come to mind. Gaodi and Wudi of the Han also come to mind, mostly from Cotterell’s ‘Tiger of Ch’in’, a favourite book of my yoof. I have a soft spot for Qianlong, too.
Ummm, last I checked both Russia and China have given very clear messages to the Empire to not attack Iran. I believe the word that Putin used was “catastrophic” consequences. Putin certainly entertains the whining of the Israelis, but he’s also been quite clear with Bibi to put aside his Biblical grudges dating back 5000 years. I think both nations also realize that the US attacking Iran is insane and would only cause the demise of the Empire, so they’re not going to stop it if the Empire is deadset on going full-retard on this.
It’s only 3500 years-5000 is mythology.
Iraq seeks air defense cooperation with Iran after IRGC downing of US drone
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/06/23/iraq-seeks-air-defense-cooperation-with-iran-after-irgc-downing-of-us-drone/
Trump offering a deal now…says Iran is in a bad place so they must come to the table…any deal….that stops them developing nuclear weapons capabilities….well I thought that was what the JCPOA was all about….that USA has withdrawn from ..duh….this sociopath just wants to be the one calling the shots…..
@ eagle eye on June 23, 2019
here ya go —
Netanyahu’s Finks Bar Meltdown
https://www.sott.net/article/300655-Netanyahus-blunders-The-latest-Israeli-false-flag-and-the-end-of-Israeli-military-power
25 Aug 2015
“The scene at Finks Bar is a curious one, Netanyahu meeting with a Particle Physicist who was both working for the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and also directly reporting to President George W. Bush. Netanyahu was also unaware that the Defense Intelligence Agency had bugged Fink’s Bar.
“Both the physicist and the head of the US military intelligence mission to Israel are editors at Veterans Today and confirm the transcript below, one from across the table from Netanyahu and the other from the recording.
“Much of the following scenario was outlined initially in 1990 in a discussion at Fink’s Bar in Jerusalem. At the head of the table was Netanyahu. The group at the table had just stolen 5 American KG 84 cryptographic devices with the help of Canadians serving with the UNTSO on the Golan Heights, giving this Israeli-led cabal real-time access to all US State Department, Naval and NATO communications. This is a transcribed quote taken from an audio recording of Netanyahu at that meeting:
‘If we get caught they will just replace us with persons of the same cloth. So it does not matter what you do, America is a golden calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left but the world’s biggest welfare state that we will create and control. Why? Because it is the will of God, and America is big enough to take the hit so we can do it again and again and again. This is what we do to countries that we hate. We destroy them very slowly and make them suffer for refusing to be our slaves.’
@ Jack
I think the era of hush-hush stealing of US secrets is well over now. What’s the point of sending Mossad spooks if they can get everything they want from the horse’s mouth at the top of the kleptocracy? The whole system (political, economic, intellectual, military, judiciary, media, etc.) is in their grasp, although with some token Goyim in places to fool the proles.
The Russians were in the same predicament in the early years of the USSR (large Jewish presence in the seats of power) but gradually, with some probing, prodding and purging by Uncle Joe, they were removed from the perch positions. On the other hand, in the US they have had a much longer presence, especially in finances early last century, and the grip that started with the take-over of the Federal Reserve Bank and WWI got tighter ever since.
Sounds like the Protocols to me ie a pre-emptive leak of real ambitions clothed in the raiments of plausible deniability.
What about the previously hyped IPI, or Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline? Does anybody have any news about this development?
Last I heard China was willing to replace India as the final destination. I would have expected the announcement of construction of this pipeline at the latest SCO meeting, which would have been a great opportunity to:
*Defy the AZ empire
*Use actions to create a loud “BANG” in favour of the SCO
*Create lots of new jobs
*Mitigate the consequences of any shutdown of Strait of Hormuz
*Create mutually beneficial outcomes for everybody (except AZ empire.)
Sometimes it is useful to look at historical precedents to help our understanding of current events and there is a relatively recent one to draw some lessons from: the US-Japanese 1941-45 war which, in my opinion, was a separate but coincidental conflict with WWII.
Japan was becoming a serious threat to US power in the Pacific which had to be confronted, independently whether the militaristic faction existed in Japan or not. Reciprocally, the Japanese knew that the US was intent on preventing their rise to the ranks of world power: hence the ingredients for war were on the table.
What did the US do? They started with an economic war on resources-poor Japan, culminating with an oil embargo at a time when Japan’s dependence on and industrialisation mostly needed it. The elaborate plan to bring Japan to Pearl Harbor took years to come to fruition but became inevitable once Japan dependence on oil became a matter of national survival. Iran is facing the same danger, not because it is a threat to anyone, but because it is in the way of a combined Zionist/US hegemonic project: oil and Israel.
Big difference is that Japan was a fascist/Nazi regime that was already committing war crimes for 20+years prior. Iran is not fascist, & not lacking natural resources.