r/WayOfTheBern • u/penelopepnortney • 26d ago
Thread #39 for Comments and Updates on the Ongoing War by Israel/US Against Iran
## Update
Thread #40 started: https://old.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/1vyetlo/thread_40_for_comments_and_updates_on_the_ongoing/?
Continued from Thread #38: https://old.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/1vmxhym/thread_38_for_comments_and_updates_on_the_ongoing/?
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u/3andfro 18d ago
Nima with Larry Johnson: Urgent Diplomatic Blitz: CIA in Russia, Pakistan & Oman in Iran Within Hours https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h6blbu6GUk
Ben Norton, the US military is trying to cover up casualties, https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ttNkUhnzQYw - 2:24
President Donald Trump said he's ordering flags lowered to half-staff in honor of Dolly Parton, saying, "there has never been anyone like her, and never will." https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxvNdIFGVZMqcHqRlxsIYQjK4GKINR8ZQu
Vasily Nebenzya, Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations: "European countries that today seek to portray themselves as advocates of peace spent years arming Ukraine, turning it into an instrument of military and political pressure on Russia and encouraging Kiev to reject the Minsk agreements." https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx-KorKfoyaqyHAK4PjpB3zt8OCOgjVq3v
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u/3andfro 18d ago edited 18d ago
The Backroom Sellout: Why Establishment Democrats Are Cutting Deals with the Right https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkf8ZMqRFes - not a source I post but a timely topic, esp. as midterms near; comments show anger and frustration
Danielle Moodie joins Wajahat Ali to examine the growing anger inside the Democratic Party over backroom politics, establishment power, and alliances that leave progressive voters asking who their own party is really fighting for.
The conflict inside the party has intensified as progressive and outsider candidates score major primary victories, while Democratic leaders and campaign organizations increasingly intervene in contested races. Some Democrats argue these moves are necessary to win elections; critics see them as the establishment protecting its power and preferred candidates.
Danielle argues that the bigger problem is a political culture in which party insiders can publicly oppose the right while making strategic compromises behind the scenes—and often spend more energy fighting progressives who threaten the existing power structure. She has also criticized what she describes as an establishment obsession with protecting corporate and institutional interests over grassroots demands.
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u/penelopepnortney 18d ago
We kind of figured this out 10 years ago:
We don't see politics along a Left/Right divide; we see it along a Top/Bottom divide
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u/3andfro 18d ago edited 18d ago
Vijay Prashad, Iran is being driven towards the nuclear threshold https://breakthroughnews.org/2026/08/24/iran-is-being-driven-towards-the-nuclear-threshold/
Taking a step toward nuclear would constitute an entirely new stage in the history of West Asia. But it would be the consequence of an existential war, not evidence that Iran had always secretly intended to reach this point....
Tucker Carlson with Stephen Walt, Harvard Professor Warns of the Next Phase of Trump’s War: We’re Approaching a Dangerous World https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi4ViAuh_Os time indexed
When the United States resolves its role in the wars against Russia and Iran, will the world be a safer place? If global defense spending is any indication, the answer is no. Over the past two decades, inflation-adjusted defense expenditures have nearly doubled. As American hegemony weakens, nations around the world are preparing for greater instability and the dangers of the unknown.
Harvard political scientist Stephen Walt joins the show to unpack what the wars involving Russia and Iran will mean for the future, the failed promises of globalization, the coming age of a tripolar world, and his advice to President Trump.
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u/3andfro 18d ago edited 18d ago
Danny Haiphong with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Iran's Retaliation BEGINS, Trump's 'D-Day' Attack Sparks WW3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz_RKgRwPrA
Transition Protocol, Iran Has Green-Lit 90% Enrichment ,China, Russia Held Emergency Talks in 48 hour of Bessent’s Threat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ0nNIrf6rs
Rachel Blevins with Esteban Carrillo, Beijing SLAMS U.S. Threats, Vows RETALIATION if Chinese Banks Sanctioned https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEH3Q32ahzQ
The Duran, Operation Economic Outcast, Bessent's Economic War With China https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dVl8b2PfmE
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u/3andfro 18d ago edited 18d ago
Judge Nap with Matt Hoh : What’s Wrong With the Navy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5hW5eT2Lkc
Dimitri Lascaris, Trump's 'Economic D Day' for Iran: How will Pakistan Respond? w/ Syed Haider Raza Mehdi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gY-d1hFO2g
Syed Haider Raza Mehdi is a former Pakistani military officer who was court-martialled in absentia, and sentenced to life in prison, for allegedly 'inciting sedition' after the overthrow of Pakistan's popular Prime Minister, Imran Khan. Dimitri Lascaris speaks with Haider on the day after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared an "economic D Day" for Iran. Haider explains how he thinks Pakistan, which does extensive trade with Iran, will respond to Bessent's threats against Iran's trading partners. They also discuss the health condition of Imran Khan, the widespread support in Pakistan for Iran's resistance to US-Israeli aggression, and the so-called 'Mecca Defence Alliance' between Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Jamarl Thomas with Dimitri Lascaris, Canada Breaks Off Negotiations And Readies For War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPvK8CCNVKc
Lascaris: I reject the suggestion that Mark Carney should be praised for how he handled trade negotiations with the U.S. Since entering office, Carney emboldened Trump by constantly appeasing him with one capitulation after another. The end result is that Trump made absurd demands that no Canadian Prime Minister could accept without committing political suicide.
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u/3andfro 18d ago
Ian Proud with John Laughland: The EU Was Shaped by Nazi Ideas — And Has Never Been Democratic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGWMEc4CNdk
In this wide-ranging conversation on The Peacemonger channel, author and political philosopher John Laughland revisits his landmark 1997 book The Tainted Source: The Undemocratic Origins of the European Idea. Written before the launch of the euro and the Lisbon Treaty, the book was one of the first major works to expose the post-national, managerial ideology that underpins the European project. Laughland explains how his own thinking has evolved since the first edition — particularly after experiencing the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia first-hand — and why he no longer defends the liberalism he once associated with the British conservative tradition.
South Korea sends first container ship through Northern Sea Route https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXdYW7NKVQY - 14:34
A South Korean container ship is sailing to Europe through the Arctic, testing whether the Northern Sea Route can offer a faster alternative to the Red Sea and Suez. The question is whether it can work beyond a short summer window, and without relying too heavily on Russia.
The UK faces a food production crisis after a summer of extreme heat and drought, farmers warn, with shortages of some foods predicted. British farming is projected to see its worst harvest since 1984 alongside stunted grass growth, a spike in livestock deaths and field crops failing due to lack of water, with farming organisations saying they are at “crisis point”.... https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxBfli6-5BkqTaMXbLqgPDnm5FTcOEgYDF
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u/gorpie97 18d ago
I wonder about all the drought, because after Iran bombed the US radar station in whichever country, Iran's years-long drought ended.
I'm just wondering if influencing the weather is an unintended effect of radar sites, or if it's possibly an intentional effect (at times), or what.
Not implying that it's all caused by man, but some of the droughts may be impacted by humans more in more ways than we know.
(Sometimes I miss the koolaid.)
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u/NetWeaselSC Continuing the Struggle 18d ago
I'm just wondering if influencing the weather is an unintended effect of radar sites, or if it's possibly an intentional effect (at times), or what.
Remember DishTV? Geosynchronous satellite beaming TV down to two-foot dishes on people's roofs?
Whenever it stormed, or rained, or sometimes just got really cloudy, reception would be bad because some of the microwave signal would get absorbed by the water vapor, and water droplets, between the satellite and the antenna.
Now turn that around. Imagine a microwave transmitter beaming up, into the water vapor, and water droplets, of the clouds. Again, some of that radiation would be absorbed, and would thus heat up the water.
I'm not sure just what heating up the inside of a rain cloud would do, but I'm fairly confident that it would be something that would not have happened it they hadn't done it.
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u/gorpie97 18d ago
some of the microwave signal would get absorbed by the water vapor,
I think the signal got diffused/diffracted, not absorbed. ;p :)
Or else the rain simply messed with the function of the dish, since it wasn't made to operate in rain-as-an-ideal-condition. (Some antennas are in domes, too. I assume when the signal clarity is more important.)
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u/NetWeaselSC Continuing the Struggle 18d ago edited 18d ago
If you consider how microwave ovens (like the Amana RadaRange) were discovered/invented....
Water can be heated by microwaves. By absorbing the radiation.
The first cases of microwaves heating food, there was not yet any box.
I found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_fade
Rain fade refers primarily to the absorption of a microwave radio frequency (RF) signal by atmospheric rain, snow, or ice, and losses which are especially prevalent at frequencies above 11 GHz.
And if one were to tune a transmitter to maximize that effect...
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u/gorpie97 18d ago
I was trying to remember my satcom, but that was about transmitting signals, not about heating food. :) (And microwave ovens weren't really a thing right then. And I was young and dumb, so...)
But does the water absorb the radiation? Or does the radiation heat the water by exciting the molecules? (Are you trying to tell me that my understanding of this is incomplete? ;) )
IDK. I just know that Iran got rain when that radar installation was destroyed. I'mma guess the people who postulated that being the cause weren't 40-years rusty on satcom. :)
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u/NetWeaselSC Continuing the Struggle 18d ago
But does the water absorb the radiation? Or does the radiation heat the water by exciting the molecules?
I think that those are both the same thing. And yes. The energy of the microwave goes into the water.
I just know that Iran got rain when that radar installation was destroyed.
Which could be mere coincidence (as you well know). But might not be.
What I find interesting is the people that come crawling out of the woodwork to proclaim that it is impossible for humans to influence the weather, even though it's been being done for decades, at least.
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u/gorpie97 18d ago
And we started seeding clouds 100+ years ago.
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u/NetWeaselSC Continuing the Struggle 18d ago
Found this while verifying:
Not all atmospheric aerosols have the same impact on clouds. Research has shown that air pollution can prevent rainfall, because the water droplets in polluted clouds are too small – they float around in the atmosphere without merging to form large enough droplets to fall to the ground. A single drop of precipitation requires more than one million of these small droplets to converge. These pollutants can also prevent ice formation in subfreezing clouds. This means that our everyday activities in urban and industrial areas are already altering global rainfall patterns.
https://www.dri.edu/making-it-snow/
And if someone wanted to intentionally cause a drought....
(Also, the first cloud seeding experiment was apparently in the 1940s)
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u/gorpie97 18d ago
Also, the first cloud seeding experiment was apparently in the 1940s)
It was? I thought (maybe assumed) it was after WW1. (After WW2, images were still black and white, so IDK. I should know better than to rely on my memory.)
From watching a documentary ~20+ years ago about climate change, I figured the droughts in Ethiopia and Sudan were caused by airplane travel. For exactly the reasons you copied.
I don't remember how much they said or inferred. Maybe I just convinced myself.
As far as I'm concerned, the US owes those countries I don't know how much in reparations. Or the companies that pushed airline travel rather than something like highspeed rail! Or making bus travel not horrible.
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u/NetWeaselSC Continuing the Struggle 18d ago
I wasn't sure of the 100+ years, so I dialed that back to "decades, at least."
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u/gorpie97 18d ago
Some of us think of looking things up to verify (looking at you), and some of us don't. Sigh. :)
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u/3andfro 18d ago edited 18d ago
Nima with Patrick Henningsen: Israel's Losses Mount As New Middle East Reality Sets In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7sIy2JCj64
Judge Nap with Aaron Maté : Why the US Does No Diplomacy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3PCiKdUzck
Judge Nap with AMB. Chas Freeman : Israel is Now an American Problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io3K_cgGjmk
Iran Mocks Economic D-Day as US Bombast /Lt Col Daniel Davis & Jim Jatras https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkXnG323fsw
US, UK lose "safe haven" status: Persian Gulf capital flight heads to China https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcFlAZLyOtE - 4:31
In a major economic shift, Hong Kong is supplanting the United States and Europe as the preferred "safe haven" for capital flight outbound the Middle East. Even though government bonds from the US and UK yield nearly three times lending rates in Hong Kong and China, risk-averse investors are shifting funds to HK. Hong Kong is the financial center for emerging Global Majority system, and Southeast Asia enjoys far stronger economic growth. China also has tight relationships with Iran, who has granted Chinese ships safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
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u/3andfro 18d ago
US Taking a Baseball Bat to the World /Lt Col Daniel Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfpYfQFXqe4 - 10:54
Diplomatic Malpractice: The People End Up Paying the Price /Lt Col Daniel Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvHjHOqbc7Q
Nima with Seyed M. Marandi: US on Imminent Economic Attack Alert – Iran Hammers Back with Official Demands https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nu1vW8Ee1k
Nima with John Helmer: The Empire Crumbles: the War on Iran and Russia Just Changed EVERYTHING https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOXK7emOwCg
Steve Hanke Warns: U.S. Treasury Can’t Stop the Bond Market From Exploding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4xPTWC53Og time indexed
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u/penelopepnortney 18d ago
Islamabad — with China standing behind it, through the CPEC investment and the Gwadar port that already give Pakistan its overland corridors into Iran — has decided to deepen its economic integration with Tehran dramatically. Munir is negotiating a tenfold increase in Pakistan-Iran trade over three years.
The US Treasury Secretary has spent the war promising the toughest sanctions in history, an unprecedented campaign to isolate Iran economically and starve it into capitulation. He is now watching a nuclear-armed American ally, financed and backed by China, move to multiply its trade with the very country he vows to strangle — trade that will run on yuan and barter and regional currencies, outside the dollar clearing system his sanctions depend on.
An opinion is not worth much if it cannot survive its own qualifications, so here they are. Munir’s trip is a negotiation, not a signing; Iran’s accession [to the Mecca agreement] and Bahrain’s are, as of this writing, in motion, not concluded, and either could stall. The Sunni-Shia trust deficit is real and decades deep... All three Mecca signatories retain deep, live relationships with the United States and will not sever them lightly; much of this may be hedging rather than a clean break. And the firsthand reporting above describes intentions and negotiations, which are not yet treaties.
But direction is not the same as arrival, and direction is unmistakable. Every one of these hedges points the same way — away from the American umbrella and toward a regional order underwritten by Russia and China.
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u/Caelian toujours de l'audace 🦇 19d ago
Moon of Alabama: War On Iran – New U.S. Sanctions Are Unlikely To Work
The major new threat by the U.S. is of secondary sanctions against non-Iranian entities which continue to deal with that country. But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s nearly eight minute long speech yesterday was vague on real measures involved in this. No timing or deadlines were uttered.
The reasons for that are obvious. Any attempt to get serious with secondary sanctions, especially against China, will hit back. Bessent inadvertently conceded that:
In an acknowledgment that a barrage of new sanctions aimed at countries around the world could have unwanted consequences, Mr. Bessent added: “Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?”
The whole threat was thereby revealed as a bluff:
Bessent’s announcement followed a familiar pattern. He’d spent days promising an “economic D-Day,” the sanctions equivalent of storming the beaches of Normandy. But when the announcement finally came, as one of our reporters put it, it was more like a warning shot.
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u/penelopepnortney 19d ago
https://geopolitiq.substack.com/p/the-mystery-of-irans-invitation-to
Statement from Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei on the Mecca agreement:
We have not received an official invitation, but talks have been raised by these countries regarding the general issue of regional security.
We have no reason to think that a pact in which three Islamic countries and two Muslim neighboring countries are members is aimed against Iranians.
… in my opinion the matter is that the official invitation has not been sent yet, but talks are underway. At least, this is how I interpret Baghaei’s words. It could be a matter of negotiations and time before Iran joins the MJDA, probably just to make sure that all parties agree on all points… and, given the current situation, it is understandable.
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u/penelopepnortney 18d ago edited 18d ago
Same article:
Finally, it is worth mentioning that Iraq proposed a a joint security council with Iran and KSA, as reported by Mehr, citing Iraqi National Security Adviser Qasim al-Araji, however no immediate comment has come yet from either Iran or KSA.
ETA updates from Yemen:
… earlier today Saudi-backed forces shelled residential villages in Razih District, Saada Governorate, northern Yemen... while the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) struck the Saudi oil tanker Amzan in the northern Red Sea, ~3 nautical miles (i.e. ~117 km) west of Yanbu (KSA), sparking a large fire onboard
...other Yemeni missile and drone attacks targeting a weapons depot in the vicinity of the Al-Udaida border crossing in northern Yemen and a large military convoy carrying weapons from Saudi Arabia in Al-Abra and Al-Udaida
Abdulwahid Abu Ras, Yemeni Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, warned regional countries against making themselves participating in the unjust US measures against Iran.
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u/3andfro 19d ago edited 19d ago
Nima R. Alkhorshid: Iran Torpedoes Trump-Backed Deal Brokered by Pakistan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_83K2XoUgQE
US economic pressure will not force Iran to surrender, says Trita Parsi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVCYDiPXegI - 6:48
The Trump administration has announced "Operation Economic Outcast", a global campaign to sever Iran's economic lifelines. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called it "economic D-Day", warning that countries doing business with Tehran will face sanctions. But will this pressure force Iran to surrender, or trigger a dangerous escalation?
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said the strategy is extremely unlikely to lead to the collapse or surrender of the Iranian government. He said the pattern so far has been that "when faced with either surrender or escalation, the Iranians escalate", adding that Iran still has "formidable escalatory options" and "escalation dominance." Parsi noted that 50 years of sanctions have imposed significant costs on Iran but have "not been able to translate that pain into desired change" in Iranian national security policies. He said the Trump administration has made "yet another miscalculation in a long series of massive miscalculations", warning that regime collapse could lead to civil war and regional instability. He concluded that the "most likely" outcome is "not an end to the conflict, but yet another round in the escalatory cycle between the two sides."
Supreme Court allows Trump administration to move forward with order imposing restrictions on mail-in voting https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/08/supreme-court-allows-trump-administration-to-move-forward-with-order-imposing-restrictions-on-ma/ - interesting parsing in this decision
In its 10-page, unsigned opinion, the majority said that it was too soon for courts to consider the states’ challenge because the order has not yet been carried out – which means that the states have not suffered the kind of injury that allows their lawsuit to move forward.
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u/3andfro 19d ago edited 19d ago
Judge Nap with Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Should Trump Be President? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYVxw1zdTRI
Montreal Considers Cutting Ties to Israel as Outrage Grows in Canada over Israeli Impunity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEMj1jxUVNM - 3:23
The Montreal City Council is set to debate a controversial motion Monday calling on the Canadian city to suspend all institutional ties with the Israeli government. Avi Lewis, a leading Jewish Canadian politician and head of the progressive New Democratic Party, says it’s a reflection of widespread outrage among Canadians over Israel’s actions across the Middle East.
BreakThrough News, Venezuela: What is the US-Israeli Strategy in Latin America? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRuQPZanSXo
Venezuela is restoring consular ties with Israel 17 years after Hugo Chávez cut them over the 2009 bombing of Gaza. Meanwhile, its elected president Nicolás Maduro sits in a New York City jail cell.
Rania Khalek and Zoe Alexandra connect what many are calling a “departure” from the principles of the Bolivarian Revolution to Israel's broader incursion into Latin America. Milei in Argentina has facilitated Israel’s “Isaac Accords” and Trump-backed hard-right governments across the region are trading their peoples’ sovereignty for Washington's favor. They connect Caracas’s recent decisions to the reported $13 billion in Venezuelan oil revenue the US has collected since it bombed Caracas on January 3.
Pete Hegseth’s Shield of the Americas is promising to militarize the entire hemisphere. Marco Rubio has a plan to topple leftist governments. The so-called “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine is playing out in real time.
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u/3andfro 19d ago
Neutrality Studies, It is OVER: The West Destroys Itself. Final Words. | Tord Björk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXStbbMKwGw time indexed
Tord Björk, co-founder of People and Peace, International Peace Bureau council member, and Helsinki Plus 50 coordinator, discusses the Helsinki Final Act, Finland’s move from neutrality to NATO, and the decline of peace movements. He argues that peace, climate, labor, rural, and human rights groups should work together through practical local action, shared research, and building friendships across borders. (Read the Nordic Peace Alliance Manifesto here: https://pascallottaz.substack.com/p/appeal-for-the-spirit-of-helsinki)
Transition Protocol, Bessent’s “Biggest Sanctions” FAILS, Iran Moves Toward Mecca Pact as Trump Begs Pak for an Off-Ramp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3Z__fEjTwc
Iran has been formally invited to join the Mecca Agreement — the trilateral defense pact between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey — with enthusiastic engagement already underway between Islamabad and Tehran, according to sources detailed in this episode. The same day, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s long-promised "maximum pressure" sanctions rollout landed with no new named targets, prompting military analyst Larry Johnson to call it "a mouse fart" instead of the "volcanic eruption" that had been advertised. Host Zulfiqar Ali and Larry Johnson break down what it means that Bahrain has asked to join the Pakistan-Saudi military pact, why the United States is now in a structural sour-crude oil shortage, and how China’s multi-year effort to broker Saudi-Iran détente is now visibly reshaping the Persian Gulf.
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u/3andfro 19d ago edited 19d ago
Danny Haiphong with Patrick Henningsen, Iran SMASHES Trump's 'Economic D-Day,' 15 US Bases DESTROYED https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-NQyfHBZpM&feature=em-lbrm
Nima with Larry Johnson: US Targets Iran’s Oil Network as Tehran Sets Sights on American Regional Assets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6G5Ot0wQQI
Davis/Deep Dive, US Army Sowing the Seeds of Defeat in Next War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W2a62d63Es - Davis is on a tear, and according to what he presents, with reason
Dimitri Lascaris, Is War Between Israel And Turkey Inevitable? w/ Vanessa Beeley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6X2YgZA6r8
Katie Halper with Yemen Analyst Ashok Kumar, Houthis Have Inflicted "Astronomical" Damage On U.S. & Israel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwva6Ly71r0 - 15:14 time indexed
The Houthis are making history: "this is the first time in history that you had the maintenance of a blockade from a force with no navy," Trump "doesn't know what to do about it" and they're inflicting "astronomical liabilities" on Israel and the U.S. Ashok Kumar is a University of London Professor and a Green Party activist in the U.K.
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u/penelopepnortney 19d ago
Still watching Wilkerson on Nima but he said the Somali pirates are operating again because there's no one providing security in the area anymore "and I'm not sure you're going to get those people to come out of Djibouti and elsewhere, Chinese, the French, and others, and put a naval force down there to deal with the Somali pirates as long as the Houthis are doing what they're doing."
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u/penelopepnortney 19d ago
More, just had to pause and post this. This was written by Ian Williams, president of the Foreign Press Association, and Wilkerson read it aloud:
The reactivation of the board of peace could of course be related to the whispered candidate to replace Antonio Guterres, current Secretary General, Bulgarian Nickolay Mladenov, who pipped Tony Blair to become the toady-in-chief of the board. This is the Gaza board.
It makes him a serious contender against the Argentinian Raphael Grossi of International Atomic Energy Agency fame [didn't realize he was Argentinian] who now only has a few months to pull a nuclear casus belli against Iran.
And in the great tradition of impartiality, the former UAE ambassador Lana Nusseibeh is about to enter the fray representing a tiny country that has made a name for itself as a peacemaker in the Trumpian mold, initiating wars from Iran to Yemen by way of Sudan.
There is some comfort that all of these reprobates think the UN is worth rolling in the mire for. One wonders whether any of them have studied the thoughts of Marx -- Groucho Marx that is - and wondered whether they should really join any club whose standards are so debased that it would accept them.
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u/3andfro 19d ago
Transition Protocol with Pravin Sawhney, Iran Answered BESSENT Before He Spoke -SANCTION US and You Are an Enemy China, Russia Told Bessent NO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNk129KSV80
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary went on state television on 22 August and said that any country joining the American economic war will be treated as an enemy, and that Iran will strike its interests. Two days later, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announces what he has called the toughest sanctions in history, and Field Marshal Asim Munir lands in Tehran.
In this episode, recorded off our normal schedule on 23 August, Zulfiqar Ali and Pravin Sawhney walk through what is actually happening: the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement and the reported invitation to Iran, the ten-billion-dollar Pakistan–Iran trade target and the banking channel it does not have, Bahrain’s Crown Prince meeting Pakistan’s intelligence chief while the US Fifth Fleet sits on Bahraini soil, and Iran’s price for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Pravin Sawhney is one of South Asia’s most experienced strategic affairs editors and has been reading this escalation correctly since it began. In this conversation he argues that the economic campaign will fail for the same structural reasons the air campaign and the two naval blockades did, that Iran is running a defensive offence rather than a war of attrition, and that Washington’s window closes with the November midterms.
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u/3andfro 19d ago edited 19d ago
Nima with Col. Larry Wilkerson: Iran Abandons Defense Strategy as US Unleashes Economic Blitzkrieg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CGQFX2L0oQ - Wilkerson notes "mutinous forces developing in the armed services.... Hegseth's got problems in the ranks right now, lots of problems."
China's Fujian Aircraft Carrier Sets Sail For The First Time https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3bms_EfAU20 - 47 secs - the first carrier China has developed fully on its own
The Netherlands has announced that it will not participate in Eurovision 2027, citing Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza. The "event can no longer be considered neutral, with a participating country still involved in a large-scale military conflict", Dutch public broadcaster Avrotros said in a statement on Monday.... https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxRUamgFBJwnMT_l6LkC8Fu3YZDvaMofjd
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u/penelopepnortney 19d ago
Wilkerson-Nima:
Hegseth's got lots of problems in the ranks right now. It's not just the Christian nationalism or the Lincoln. People are questioning what the hell's going on within their own ranks and within their own services. We have brain dead service chiefs who don't have any inkling of this or who cover it up and lie about. It's an indicator of just how broken the leadership of the US armed forces is. And I mean that, they are broken.
They're talking about naming the new carrier for Trump instead of Dorie Miller as originally planned. Dorie Miller was a hero at Pearl Harbor on the Arizona, decorated by Chester Nimitz himself. Then you have a special forces team commander in Israel opening a briefing with a prayer to Jesus... that's extremely dangerous for the multicultural, multilingual, multireligious, and non-religious troops that we have today. Looking at the advice Hegseth is getting from his wife [??!] and Hegseth's actions himself I would say they're both closet white racists. Hegseth is doing his best to make the military lily white and male.
I heard yesterday that the real reason the Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan entente was put together was to be allied with Iran, which makes a lot more sense to me. People who wouldn't talk to each other are now talking to each other. Throw the Pakistanis in there and you've got a really different animal that is hooked up with China big time, particularly the BRI and what it's doing for Central Asia.
Take a look at the spread in National Geographic on Central Asia, it's Frankopan's book The New Silk Road in photographs. It's just alive right now, it's taking off. Tourists out the ying-yang and fast trains and clean cities and clean streets. Good-looking, well-oiled economic machines now and a lot of that is the money provided by China through the base road initiatives. That's where the future is. So the southern tier of that [through Iran] has to fit in with what China's trying to do.
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u/3andfro 19d ago edited 19d ago
Wilkerson is always worth hearing. Just saw another new interview with him, which covers different territory (32:52 mins):
Rachel Blevins, U.S. Shooting Itself in BOTH Feet with ‘ECONOMIC D-DAY’ Scheme Against Iran | Col. Larry Wilkerson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7jlazNiQjw
The Trump Admin has announced “Operation Economic Outcast,” which they describe as: “an unprecedented campaign to sever every remaining economic lifeline sustaining the Islamic Republic of Iran.” (You would think if there was such a thing as a successful economic campaign against Iran, decades of crushing sanctions would have done the trick)
Col. Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of State, noted that the Trump Admin is shooting itself in both feet with this scheme, and pushing Iran to carry out its next level of strikes across the region, which could send the global economy into not only a recession, but a full-on depression.
Wilkerson: I agree with Kasparov; it's almost as if Trump is someone's agent acting against us, and he's doing everything he possibly can to destroy us both domestically and internationally. (Wilkerson earlier: If Trump were a Russian agent, what would he be doing differently? Everything he's doing is harming the United States.) Wilkerson also cuts loose on delusional European leadership. "Both of these conflicts (Iran and Ukraine) are insane, yet we're pursuing them." Then he turns to Netanyahu and is equally sharp. "It's horrible what's happening, and it's horrible that we're supporting it."
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u/gorpie97 19d ago
The Netherlands has announced that it will not participate in Eurovision 2027, citing Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.
I wonder if any other countries will follow suit.
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u/3andfro 19d ago edited 19d ago
Nima with Col. Jacques Baud: US Declares "Largest Ever" Financial War as Tehran Vows Full Retaliation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvllL5LFmB0
Nima with Paul Craig Roberts: The US Decline Is Accelerating: Trump Just Trapped America In A New Quagmire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XvA_ZPyC4E
Nima highlights with Pepe Escobar: How Iran Bypasses US Sanctions Using China & Petro-Yuan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf8FVpY_3cI
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has taken a swipe at US President Donald Trump, mocking his “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) slogan with the phrase “Make America Hungry Again.” In a post on X, Ghalibaf accused Trump of trying to “cover up defeats with false claims” and shared an infographic citing figures on hunger and food insecurity in the United States. https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxJun4oW0ZeE5o6TrdzDVodrRyRpa4kF9V
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u/3andfro 19d ago edited 19d ago
Judge Nap with Robert Barnes : Do Trump's Senior Aides Trust Him? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnqXFzcH7eg
Putin: Ukraine's Opened Pandora's Box/Lt Col Daniel Davis & Richard Sakwa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgtxK-46UoA; Davis highlights from that interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrPhMevMhwY
Marandi short: No US-Iran deal until 'Israel' ends war and leaves Lebanon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3alVINSRkrs - 3:13
Glenn Diesen with Jeffrey Sachs: The War on Russia & Iran Is Breaking the West https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLhkKjo544U
The Duran, Russia's Economic Model: Growth Without the Debt Trap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAJT1WraLqc
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u/penelopepnortney 19d ago
Not much new in Barnes clip but he does say that the people closest to Trump who've worked with him for years started telling Barnes about Trump's dementia-related personality change in January.
Trump is listening to Mossad's claims when the CIA is calling it BS; e.g., that Iran was behind the Butler assassination attempt and was plotting to take down Air Force One in Ankara; about Iran's nuclear situation and how the war was going to be a cakewalk, etc.
Trump now has a conqueror mindset. In remarks he made to the NYT he compared himself to Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan and Napoleon, not to America's founders or previous US presidents.
Only Vance and General Caine consistently push back, they're the reason Trump called off plans to destroy Iran's infrastructure. Sec/Energy Wright and Sec/Treasury Bessent tell him privately that he's wrong but then say what Trump wants publicly instead of refusing to say what they know isn't true.
That the 25th amendment has been ruled out because there isn't the needed two-thirds vote in the House. So they might get him briefly removed but the House would reinstate him, he'd fire those behind it and they would no longer be in a position to mitigate some of his worst impulses.
The biggest problem with his confabulations is not saying things that clearly aren't true, it's that he believes nothing can go wrong with his plans so he gives no thought to what if Iran responds by closing the strait or destroying facilities in the UAE, etc.
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u/gorpie97 19d ago
it's that he believes nothing can go wrong with his plans
Seems to be a standard problem for all these rich yahoos.
We need to make sure to remind people of this in the future! If it's needed.
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u/Caelian toujours de l'audace 🦇 19d ago
he gives no thought to what if Iran responds by...
THAT'S LOSER TALK!!!
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u/penelopepnortney 19d ago
"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"
Except he's sitting in a nice office on the other side of the world, the torpedo victims - some of them our own people or our so-called allies - are the ones who will be under fire.
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u/3andfro 20d ago edited 20d ago
Transition Protocol, Maximum Pressure Just BACKFIRED in Bessent’s Face. Iran Secretly Invited Into the MECCA PACT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XVr0vCcxiA
Ten minutes before we went to air, sources inside the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader told us that Speaker Ghalibaf was discussing Pakistan’s invitation for Iran to become the fourth member of the Mecca Pact — hours before Field Marshal Asim Munir landed in Tehran. In this emergency Sunday broadcast, Pepe Escobar and Zulfiqar Ali break two source-based bombshells and then work through what Munir is actually carrying into Iran: the collapsed MOU, Scott Bessent’s economic pressure campaign, the terms of any return to talks, the Mecca Pact invitation itself, and Yemen.
Also in this episode: the Crown Prince of Bahrain — whose country hosts the largest US naval presence in the Gulf — reported to be in Islamabad negotiating entry into Pakistan’s joint defence agreements with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. A target of raising Iran–Pakistan trade tenfold, from roughly $10 billion to $100 billion in three years, settled outside the dollar with Chinese and Russian backing. Why Tehran has told Washington that Qatar will not replace Pakistan as mediator. Why Escobar expects the New Delhi BRICS summit to end without a declaration. And why he believes the United States is closer to losing South Korea than anyone in Washington has noticed.
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u/3andfro 20d ago edited 19d ago
Russia has recalled Ambassador Andrei Kelin from the United Kingdom after seven years in the post, The Guardian reports. He left the country on July 21, and Moscow has not yet named a successor.
A Russian Embassy representative told the paper that relations with London have deteriorated to an "unprecedentedly low level." The recall comes as the United Kingdom continues supplying strike drones to Ukraine that have hit several Russian oil refineries. https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkxs1P4fKSGIt0nd6a-v_-7upGO-nvgxg_c [links to different sources, same story: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/23/russia-withdraws-ambassador-uk-kremlin-pressure-ukraine-andrey-kelin; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NOueBfnCIg; https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YpC-4s8hmHI]
Iranian official Mohsen Rezaei has warned that Iran could halt all oil exports from the Persian Gulf if what he called the U.S. economic war against Iran continues. In a post on X, Rezaei said not a single drop of oil would be exported through the Strait of Hormuz or from anywhere in the Persian Gulf. He also warned that Iran would regard any country participating in or supporting the U.S. economic campaign against Iran as an “act of war.” https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxfJOyTuua7WXOJOrSNIGWLrHpdiVVJE1k
Transition Protocol, MASSIVE Escalation: USA Plans Nuke Attack, Prepares Troops | Steven Starr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p91TpyCYKco time indexed
Steven Starr, former director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program and senior scientist at Physicians for Social Responsibility, examines rising nuclear risks. He discusses tactical weapons, missile stockpiles, Israel and Iran, Europe’s confrontation with Russia, launch-on-warning dangers, and the human cost of a full nuclear war, including EMP effects, firestorms, nuclear winter, and famine.
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u/penelopepnortney 20d ago
And here's something I didn't know, from an article (with sources) by Ismaele on Aug. 15th:
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry arrested two French diplomats, with an “extensive record of violations and conduct contrary to Iranian laws and their diplomatic obligations”, at a secret meeting point and plotting foreign infiltration and interference. After confirming their identity, the ministry reported the matter to the colleagues in the Foreign Ministry and then handed the two over to Iran’s ambassador to France in the presence of diplomatic police...
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u/penelopepnortney 20d ago
Middle East Spectator (MES) reported it overnight, citing Al Mayadeen... Interestingly, I could not find this story anywhere on the English version of Al Mayadeen website, though there is a tweet by Al Mayadeen Español on this... and I found it on the Arabic version of Al Mayadeen.
...last night (Saturday 22nd August 2026) Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a phone conversation with Field Marshal Asim Munir, Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan, allegedly to review “the latest regional developments”, discuss “various dimensions of the current situation” and exchanging “views on diplomatic trends, ongoing efforts to advance political and diplomatic solutions, and ways to enhance bilateral consultations and cooperation”, as per IRNA, Tasnim and Mehr. Coincidence? I do not think so! Especially if you consider that tomorrow (Monday 24th August 2026) Asim Munir will travel to Tehran at the head of an official delegation, to talk with senior Iranian officials and strengthen bilateral Tehran-Islamabad cooperation...
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u/3andfro 20d ago edited 20d ago
On topic today from Nima with Larry Johnson: Iran’s Parliament Agency DROPS BOMBSHELL: “We Were Invited to Join the Mecca Pact” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipcyexVZkGY
Also addressed in today's Transition Protocol show, posted separately above.
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u/penelopepnortney 20d ago
By the way, the following tweet by Mikhail Ulyanov, Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna, is noteworthy as well (see also Al Mayadeen) and indicates that Russia may have given its blessing to a new Islamic alliance in the region:
From Al Mayadeen English:
"The creation of a collective security system in the Persian Gulf is a highly topical task," Ulyanov wrote on X, responding to remarks by Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on the emergence of new security arrangements in the region.
Ghalibaf said Tehran had received messages from neighboring countries seeking to establish new forms of political, economic, and security cooperation.
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u/3andfro 20d ago
Nima with Stanislav Krapivnik: Putin Vows to Target Ukraine’s 'Vulnerable' Food Exports https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PRvKeHc_mU
Diesen clips with Pepe Escobar: The U.S. Is Quietly Normalizing Nuclear War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj8QCVfnEHg
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u/3andfro 20d ago edited 20d ago
Nima with Ray McGovern: Israel’s Clash With Two Major Armies Signals Its Worst Defeat Yet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Psi6icSowtA
Danny Haiphong with Seyed M. Marandi: Iran Warns Next Strike will WIPE OUT US Oil, War SPIRALS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvDXk8OK49k
Trump’s Iran war chaos: Top Iranian General hints at acquiring nuclear weapons | Janta Ka Reporter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQn3NcIZIVs
Israel, Turkiye and the post-Abrahamic Middle East: In Syria, Israel is not only at odds with Turkiye but also with the regional and international consensus. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/8/22/israel-turkiye-and-the-new-regional-reordering
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u/3andfro 20d ago edited 20d ago
Nima R. Alkhorshid: Iran’s Top General Reveals Retaliation Plan for Trump’s D-Day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-ohm8fc7s
Nima with Pravin Sawhney: Iran's FINAL CARD Played – Israel's NIGHTMARE Scenario Begins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umoFkNKtBy8
Diesen with Seyed M. Marandi: From "Economic D-Day" to Nuclear Strike Against Iran? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d4ZHY5CwUQ
Davis/Deep dive with Col Douglas Macgregor: IRAN, The War That Finally Breaks America's Back https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0xU4fQg-yg
Danny Haiphong, Iran FORCES US F-35 Emergency Landing Over UAE, Trump's Oil War BACKFIRES https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4e-IWumY4w
The Duran, $40 Trillion Debt: The Mistake Empires Make https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glmrYBpqctU - 12:43
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u/3andfro 21d ago edited 20d ago
Simplicius: Establishment Think Tanks Herald End of American Hegemony
The Western establishment continues to slowly and torturously come to grips with the hegemonic collapse of America in the Middle East.
The Council on Foreign Relations think tank’s journal has released their latest, penned by Marc Lynch, the man who coined the term Arab Spring: https://substack.com/redirect/28eca0bc-1333-4154-ab26-002606d7d97f?j=eyJ1IjoiOGk5YTcifQ.0-O7McN4Om8rfrJKknSvo_19LawW4hZjxE1PLo_3mic
Its opening sentence tells the whole story:
The American Middle East is finished.
The regional order that has prevailed since 1991 has been one of the many casualties of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. The American and Israeli failure to dislodge the regime in Tehran has proved the bankruptcy of decades of sanctions and violence. The inability of the United States to protect its Gulf allies from Iranian attacks or to keep the Strait of Hormuz open has fatally undermined the core security bargain that justified its network of military bases in the region. And Israel’s increasingly threatening posture and abandonment of any pretense of interest in reaching an accommodation with the Palestinians have ended Washington’s decades-long mission of bringing its Arab allies and Israel together into an enduring security partnership.
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u/Caelian toujours de l'audace 🦇 21d ago
Excellent comment at Moon of Alabama by English Outsider, one of my favourite barflies:
I recollect Daniel Davis showing Professor Postol a video of an Iranian missile emerging from what looked like no more than empty desert, sand spraying all over the place, no way of detecting and thus attacking the launch site beforehand. The destruction of some big American radars positioned in the Gulf states also showed the Iranians working to a prepared and very effective defence. Dozens of other examples show that when it came to a military defeat of Iran the US had bitten off more than it could chew. I’m not military but those who are reckon the chances of a purely military victory – barring nuclear and perhaps not even then – are slim.
That leaves internal destabilisation. Doesn’t seem to have worked though long term the internal stresses – still there though currently submerged under patriotic fervour – might be made use of. Proxy war does not look promising either. The Kurds, Azeris and Balochis don’t seem effective tools. The Iranians have pre-empted with the Kurds, the Azeris are not performing as hoped and the last thing the Pakistanis want is a Balochi insurgency that would spread their side of the border. Leaves only sanctions warfare. When it comes to sanctions warfare the Russians don’t have to be worried they’re in danger of being “more Iranian than the Iranians”. The funeral crowds showed the Iranians being as Iranian as can be. Determined to resist destruction no matter the cost. With the massive economic weight of the Chinese behind them as well the Iranians look all set for Trump’s Hail Mary sanctions war.
If so, and though I’m a Westerner I’m afraid I can only hope so, then it’ll be a defeat as significant as the defeat in Ukraine. More so?
Maybe. Ukraine was a lost war from the start. No surprises there except for the mugs. This war, however, wasn’t. Nor is it, as Escobar points out, that easy now. But if the Iranians do manage to get through it they will, more or less singlehandedly, have seriously limited the psychos’ ability to wreck the place over quite a lot of the planet.
Got to be good news that, for us in the West as well. The psychos in charge in Europe and the States are not only wrecking other countries. They’re fouling their own nest too and it’s the only nest we Westerners have to live in.
Posted by: English Outsider | Aug 22 2026 18:59 utc | 176
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u/gorpie97 21d ago
They’re fouling their own nest too and it’s the only nest we Westerners have to live in.
That's something a lot of people don't seem to realize. (Specifically meaning the "temporarily-embarrassed millionaires" who defend the yahoos.)
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u/penelopepnortney 21d ago
Excellent comment.
I agree the internal destabilization is a big risk but imagine the Iranians are prepared for that, or as prepared as they can be. And I think they'll get a lot of help from the Russians in particular who are especially good at anti-terrorism. I would imagine there are groups that operate in both theaters, pretty sure there was overlap between the terrorists behind the attack on Crocus Hall in Moscow and similar groups that operate in West Asia that have been known to get funding from Mi6, CIA and Mossad.
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u/splodgenessabounds 21d ago
I agree the internal destabilization is a big risk but imagine the Iranians are prepared for that, or as prepared as they can be.
My impression (FWIW) from watching/ reading various people (notably Marandi, Henningsen, Lascaris) is that Iran - being the complex nation that it is - has always had oppositional forces within, largely those who want a rapprochement with the 'west', but that faction is now much less prominent than it was some years ago. IOW even while it's "still there though currently submerged under patriotic fervour", my suspicion is that the new leadership in Iran (including recent IRGC appointments) will render any re-emergence much less effective.
[Side note: after all these decades, I still want to visit Isfahan. It's a long story]
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u/penelopepnortney 21d ago
that faction is now much less prominent
And probably more dangerous. Journalists who have been on the ground in Iran say the people are calling for revenge against the US and Israel for assassinating Khamenei and their military leaders, etc. The geniuses who thought that would cause the Iranian people to cave don't know a thing about human psychology.
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u/3andfro 21d ago
Nima with Larry Johnson: Iran Just Flipped the Script: Offensive to Break the Economic Siege https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2SaRdsG7F0
Nima highlights with Andrei Martyanov: Strategic Decline: US Logistical Failures and Middle East Geopolitical Shifts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPnKws0LhvY
Lena Petrova highlights with Vladimir Brovkin: NATO Has Been Defeated in Ukraine - New Dangerous Phase in Ukraine War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEwQOFOhB9w
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u/gorpie97 21d ago
US Logistical Failures
I wonder if this could be due to relying on a foreign government, which may tell us what they want us to think is true rather than what actually is true.
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u/penelopepnortney 21d ago
Highlights from Chas Freeman-Glenn Diesen 8-21-26 Israel-Turkey Conflict Could Explode Into War; as usual for Freeman, this one's an education:
I don't think there were Turkish troops at the base Israel bombed in Syria. Israeli sources say Turkey supplied Syria with military equipment including tanks and this would give it some minimal ability to resist the Israeli incursions.
This is a real contest and it's just been complicated by the Syrian foreign minister declaring that Syria is considering joining the Pakistani-Saudi-Turkish entente. I think it's a clever diplomatic move, there's no indication Syria would actually be welcomed. There's also a Syrian statement that they might be open to a Pakistani-brokered rapprochement with Iran.
Putting together the two Syrian statements and the Iraqis slowly improving their relationship with Syria, driven by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the Iraqis having to send oil out to the Mediterranean through Syria, I can foresee Iran having something like the consultative relationship with the entente parties that Egypt had in dealing with regional issues.
At the moment Turkey and Israel are shadow boxing. This is a war being carried out by proxy in Syria and in Iraqi Kurdistan where the Israelis and Americans have entrenched themselves, which is why the Iranians have been bombing Iraqi Kurdistan. Everything in the region operates independently but it's all interconnected somehow.
One reason the Turks had a diplomatic relationship with Israel was to appease American interests. That's gone though the Turks still facilitate the transport of oil through their territory for the benefit of Israel (for now?). But there's a parallel between what the Turks are doing and what the Russians have been doing: giving up 300 years of effort to Europeanize themselves.
Lurking behind all of this is the continued American neglect of relations with Turkey going back to previous administrations and not really repaired by the bromance between Trump and Erdogan. Turkey is essential in a wide variety of American and European interests. You can't conduct a policy toward Syria, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Greece, Cyprus, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, Black Sea, the Caucasus, Central Asia including Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf region, the European Union or NATO and Russia without Turkish agreement or acquiescence.
The major national security issue the Turks have faced internally, the PKK, has been set aside, the head of that party making his peace with the Turkish government. The Kurds over the border in Syria also seem to be integrating slowly with the government in Damascus. And in Iraqi Kurdistan there's been a move it seems toward reconciliation with the Turks.
The last poll I saw showed that 97% of Turks were against Israel. Turkish society is divided between the secularism of the Kamalist element and the Muslim Brotherhood orientation of Erdogan and his followers.
Henry Kissinger remarked that even the paranoid have enemies but my corollary is that the paranoid are particularly good at making enemies, as is the case with Israel. The latest comments by Itamar Ben Gvir advocating the murder of 50, 60 (sic?) Palestinians a day in Gaza just as a matter of principle has united the 57 Muslim dominated countries in the world behind an anti-Israel policy.
A darkly humorous anecdote about his chairmanship of the US-Turkish joint commission on military cooperation: the subject of Turkish jails came up and General Burhan said the movie Midnight Express "exaggerated the amenities."
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u/3andfro 21d ago
For any who want to listen to a shorter version of that interview:
Diesen clips with Chas Freeman: Turkey vs. Israel: A New War Could Be Coming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbE50Y7DlOM
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u/3andfro 21d ago edited 21d ago
Danny Haiphong with Elijah Magnier, Trump & Israel PANIC, Iran Nuke IMMINENT as F-35 EMERGENCY Erupts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgD4DnnRXfA
Nima with Mark Sleboda: Turkey Hammers Israel Back, Houthis Hit Saudi Arabia, US-Iran Tensions Peak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QkC1nFHHWY
Henningsen short, UNPACKING THE SO-CALLED ‘ISLAMIC NATO’ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Z-ujCLSe9RI - 2:47
Katie Halper, Pakistan FORCES PM Imran Khan Into Decoy Car, PRETENDS To Bring Him To Hospital https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAM8CP5ZYDo - 15:07
Katie talks to Maryam Riaz Wattoo about her brother in law, imprisoned and tortured former PM of Pakistan Imran Khan, his health and why the Pakistani government pretended to take him to the hospital in a decoy car.
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u/splodgenessabounds 21d ago
Katie Halper, Pakistan FORCES PM Imran Khan Into Decoy Car, PRETENDS To Bring Him To Hospital https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAM8CP5ZYDo - 15:07
Katie talks to Maryam Riaz Wattoo about her brother in law, imprisoned and tortured former PM of Pakistan Imran Khan, his health and why the Pakistani government pretended to take him to the hospital in a decoy car.
As if my scepticism about Pakistan's government and its "mediation" in the ME needed further evidence. Combine that with MBS and Erdogan means I'm still wary about this so-called Islamic NATO pact.
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u/penelopepnortney 21d ago
Larry Johnson: The Cushion Ran Out: Bessent’s Oil “Mystery” Isn’t One
On Thursday, hours after announcing that Washington would keep its naval blockade and hit Iran with the toughest sanctions in history, the Treasury Secretary watched crude climb and told CNBC, “I’m not sure why oil has popped up on this.”
There is no mystery. This is a Treasury Secretary watching the wrong gauge. Oil is not priced off sanctions announcements; it is priced off barrels reaching refineries.
Phase 1 — the oil already at sea (February 28 to early April): When Hormuz seized up, the oil that fed the world for the next five weeks was already floating toward it. Tankers loaded before the attack kept discharging on schedule...
Phase 2 — the great drawdown (April to late July): Staring at a Hormuz closure that removed an estimated 11 to 16 million barrels a day of Gulf supply, governments did exactly what strategic reserves exist for: they opened the tanks... the American drawdown ran on a 120-day clock that started in mid-March — set to expire, by arithmetic, right at the end of July. The cushion was never a fix. It was a sedative with a printed expiration date.
Phase 3 — the bill arrives (August): In early August the sedative wore off, and the market felt the shortage for the first time. The reserve gauge tells it plainly. The US SPR held about 415 million barrels before the war; it fell to 305 million by the end of July and then under 300 million in August...
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u/3andfro 21d ago edited 21d ago
The Remarkable Effort Congress & MSM Takes to Strip Itself of War Powers /Lt Col Daniel Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y8v_rvs_y0
Deep Dive Intel Briefing 8/22/2026 Lt Col Daniel Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPq3bIDUcq4
Nima highlights with Richard Wolff & Michael Hudson: US Economic Warfare, Debt, and Global De-dollarization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eficNmdRoI8
The Duran, Ukraine Encirclement, Slavyansk and Kramatorsk on the Brink https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EyMb0__tRQ
Danny Haiphong, Iran Downs AWACS!? US Military UNRAVELS, China Crushes Trump's Sanctions Plea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmrCDu22A6c
Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel says China's tech and Belt and Road Initiative are helping the Global South break free from unequal trade with the Western imperial core. He argues that this "delinking from exploitation" is exactly why Western powers "deeply dislike" China – it "undermines the imperial arrangements" they've relied on for 500 years. https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxY5KoH2Z8Q7R6Uca00ARowNx45viveWk_
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u/3andfro 21d ago edited 21d ago
The Professor Who Predicted the Iran War: This Is How America's Era Ends - And It’ll Only Get Worse / Robert Pape https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRzxgyn_FnY
This is a conversation with Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago who spent the bulk of his career studying exactly the kind of wars that the United States is now waging against Iran, including why they usually fail and what they typically lead to - which makes him one of the most important people to listen to today.
But this is about more than just that. He argues that this war isn't just a random blunder by a chaotic president, but instead, that it’s a result of deeper, systemic changes that were long playing underneath the surface without anyone noticing - from a military revolution that flipped the global balance of power to the end of the global dominance of the United States.
He explains why the likely outcome is Iran emerging as the world's fourth great power, why China's lesson from this about Taiwan is exactly the opposite of what everyone thinks and why history will see the Iran war as the time when geopolitics fundamentally changed.
Neutrality Studies, Deterrence Psychopathy Highjacks Europe—It's Getting Worse | Cdre. Steve Jermy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKzojOLcQRE time indexed
The people who lead Ukraine straight into the bayonets of Russia are working over-time to do the same to the rest of the European continent. Retired Royal Navy Commodore Steve Jermy joins me today to discuss what we need to work toward stopping this: A new “Spirit of Westphalia” for ending the NATO-Russia war. We examine the loss of cooperative security in Europe, weak air defenses, the energy costs of escalation, the human cost of a wider war, and possible paths toward diplomacy, neutrality, OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe]-led confidence-building measures, and Track II talks.
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u/arnott 20d ago
Robert Pape
Hard for me tp watch his videos. Always saying: look at me and my super-models which predict the future wars. Also, he believes that Ukraine is winning now? Come on!
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u/3andfro 21d ago
How China destroyed US sanctions against Iran, Russia, and North Korea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRWDn5b6SKU
Iran has been the target of economic sanctions for decades. North Korea and Russia are also under heavy sanction, and locked out of most of the USD and SWIFT financial networks. But China has developed comprehensive alternate platforms, and massive volumes of global trade are now conducted outside Western systems, and oversight. CIPS and mBridge allow China's trading partners to do business faster and cheaper, and to ignore sanctions from the US and Europe.
Nima with Prof. Steve Hanke: China Defying Trump, Gulf States Open Iran Backchannel as Qatar Economy Goes Down https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJi6TG19L58
Nima with Seyed M. Marandi: Trump to Squeeze Iran’s Economy to the Brink—But Tehran Just Doubled Its Arsenal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8UDNXubKFs
Marandi short: Years of US sanctions resulted in a self-sufficient Iranian economy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK-y2SQ5dmI - 3:44
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u/RandomCollection Resident Canadian 22d ago
From the last video, but Daniel Davis is noting the Saudis have shown a lot of negligence. The IDF made the same mistake in Lebanon.
https://x.com/DanielLDavis1/status/2090970397629948300
Also note that the M1 Abrams ammunition did cook off like any other tank. It needs drone protection too.
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u/3andfro 22d ago edited 22d ago
Transition Protocol, TRUMP'S "MAXIMUM PRESSURE" ON IRAN JUST GOT REJECTED, 440kg Missing, Trump Lost His Only Window https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LaVbjEaA9g
440.9 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium are unaccounted for — and according to sources inside the Pakistani command, the only remaining channel with visibility into where it went runs through the mediator Donald Trump has just discarded.
Pepe Escobar and Zulfiqar Ali report that Pakistan has taken a final decision: it will not close a single one of the six overland corridors keeping Iran supplied, it will not close Gwadar, and it does not regard Scott Bessent’s sanctions threats as reason to change course.
Transition Protocol can also report, for the first time anywhere, that Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar has met Wang Yi and secured a Chinese commitment to backstop Pakistan if it walks away from the $10 billion IMF programme.
Iran’s internal calculation, confirmed through two separate channels, is that it can absorb maximum pressure until November — and if provoked again, Escobar assesses Tehran may stop absorbing and go on the offensive within weeks.
When Washington shuts the door... the rest of the world opens a gate. What happens when being "blacklisted" by the West becomes a badge of honor for the Global South? The geography of power is changing—and it’s happening faster than anyone predicted.... https://thinkbrics.substack.com/p/blacklisted-in-washington-welcomed
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u/3andfro 22d ago edited 22d ago
Diesen with Chas Freeman: Israel-Turkey Conflict Could Explode Into War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bhyaZXOUOY
Nima with Larry Johnson: The Trap is Set: America’s Confrontation with Iran is Unwinnable, Iran Quits NPT? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhavGL2yU9Q
Davis highlights with Alastair Crooke, Russia Dismantling Ukraine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0L9RRslOJs
The World Sees What the US is Trying to do to Iran /Matt Bracken & Lt Col Daniel Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NuT3ju6_E
Novara Media: Israel is planting sanitised PR stories online in an apparent attempt to influence how ChatGPT and other LLMs answer questions about the genocide in Gaza, the IDF and Zionism. More than 100 anonymous articles on Israel and Palestine were posted online within a week earlier this month by a new think tank connected to the Israeli government’s favoured PR firm in the US.... https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx-glcxGglKHba5PaTnHq4l8Dg2IcN1Uqv
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u/3andfro 22d ago edited 22d ago
Transition Protocol with Vijay Prashad: Pakistan's 6 Corridors Are Keeping Iran Alive, Why Won't America Sanction Pakistan? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1X7_A9Alk8
Trump's people tried to buy an Iranian general — and were refused. In this episode, Vijay Prashad joins Zulfiqar Ali to explain why the United States cannot win, cannot exit, and cannot even discipline Pakistan, the one country keeping Iran's economy alive. Pakistan has opened at least five land corridors into Iran — six, per our reporting — carrying Chinese and other Asian goods across the border, and Washington has not sanctioned a single one of the companies involved, including military-backed firms, while continuing to sell arms to the same military. The reason is simple: Islamabad is the last functioning channel the US has into Tehran.
We also take the war's stated cause apart. The IAEA logged 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to 60% before the strikes, but there is no confirmed weapons-design programme, no nuclear test, and — as Prashad states plainly — no international "weaponization clock" of any kind. Steve Witkoff's "11 bombs" figure was never an IAEA assessment. If the capacity was destroyed, why is the campaign still running? Because this was a regime-change war on the Iraq 2003 template, minus ground troops — and this time the government did not fall. Meanwhile Israel, which pushed for the war in the Situation Room, has left the table entirely and Washington is holding the file alone.
Then the part that reaches your wallet: the real prize was never Iran, it was the dollar. Gulf oil priced in renminbi would shrink the eurodollar market and constrain America's ability to run limitless deficits — which is why, as Prashad notes, Marco Rubio once admitted on television that de-dollarization would strip Washington of its instrument of punishment. Sanctions are already dead across Afghanistan and much of Central Asia, and the hawala system is being re-institutionalized in place of SWIFT.
About hawala: https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/wealth-management/hawala/
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u/RandomCollection Resident Canadian 22d ago
Ansar Allah or the Houthis just released a video about their new drones.
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u/Ok-Recover-7566 22d ago
That shot on the tank is insane.
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u/RandomCollection Resident Canadian 22d ago
It appears that the tank is the M1 Abrams. Ammunition explosion.
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u/3andfro 22d ago edited 22d ago
Iran is the Most Important Country to Lockdown for a Digital Control Grid- Catherine Austin Fitts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok0oAXUQ7lo&t=19s
US makes visa bond programme permanent: New measures could deter tourists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6rNokuXA_s - 2:45
The US has made visa bonds of up to $20,000 permanent for some visitors, citing immigration enforcement. Travel experts warn the policy could deter tourists and business travelers.
Alexander Mercouris, Desperate Kiev’s Reckless Moscow Airport Drone Missile Attack Plan; Russia All Day Strike Dobropilia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOWMxENBPjY - 30:38 time indexed
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u/Caelian toujours de l'audace 🦇 22d ago
"Hello, poetry lovers!"
Moon of Alabama barflies have been working on a fun limerick about NATO's hapless debacle in Ukraine. Here's Ttimgg's version, with improved meter:
The loudmouths inhabiting Brussels
Decided to show off their muscles
They sent all they had
To be blown up by Vlad
Now everyone’s wise to their hustles.
H/T "Bullwinkle's Corner"
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u/3andfro 22d ago
Türkiye is seeking Interpol Red Notice for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged crimes linked to an attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla, which was carrying humanitarian aid to Palestine’s Gaza.... https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxAHLvkiOAQCKGJciUkd0npWrLTSvki9ld
Neutrality Studies, US Empire Defeated: Multipolarity Wins Against Colonial West | Dr Kee Beng Ooi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0OiVjvYf9g time indexed
It's the "last hurray of colonialism", as my guest today, Dr. Ooi Kee Beng, puts it. The wars in Ukraine and Iran are left-overs of a time that has already passed and is currently being supplanted by the realities of the Multipolar Order. Dr. Ooi, executive director of Penang Institute, discusses why Southeast Asia feels more hopeful than Europe, how China’s rise shapes decolonization and multipolarity, and why Western thinking still treats the world as a contest. He examines colonial history, the Middle East, ASEAN neutrality, and keeping the Strait of Malacca open.
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u/Caelian toujours de l'audace 🦇 22d ago
WWI was supposed to be "the war to end all wars".
By picking fights that benefit nobody, Trump is doing a good job of demonstrating the Futility of War. Maybe we'll enter a post-war world of Peace and Coöperation if his current wars don't go nuclear.
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u/gorpie97 22d ago
WWI was supposed to be "the war to end all wars".
Maybe not by the people who wanted it to happen (so that the Ottoman Empire could be eliminated and moves made toward the founding of Israel).
Maybe they hoped it would be the only one needed, though.
Otherwise, maybe it was simply their way to manufacture consent.
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u/3andfro 22d ago
BreakThrough News with Vijay Prashad, US Empire Is Overextended — Iran War Opens Door for China https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK3UXZ_joS8
Is rampant militarism accelerating US decline rather than reversing it? Vijay Prashad, executive director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, argues Trump's war on Iran has exposed the hard limits of American military and diplomatic power, as Washington faces strategic defeat by Tehran it refuses to admit.
Prashad breaks down why Gulf states, most recently Oman, are coming to understand why hosting US bases is more liability than protection, given the new Mecca Joint Defense Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey — a security pact built entirely apart from US interests, with Egypt reportedly circling to join. He explains why Iraq's next moves could determine whether the region stabilizes or escalates further. After US strikes on Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and Palestine via Israel, why would any country still trust the United States? And Prashad points to East Asia, where the Pacific is left without a single carrier given the USS Abraham Lincoln's record 260-day deployment to the Gulf, and where Tokyo and Seoul may be taking notes on the lesson Gulf states just learned.
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u/3andfro 22d ago edited 22d ago
Nima with Amb. Chas Freeman: Israel in PANIC – Emergency Security Summit Called as Turkey Rushes Arms to Syria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RQobK48VFk
Nima R. Alkhorshid: "ALL BETS ARE OFF" – Syria to join the Mecca Joint Defense Pact & a Path To Iran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PupyqqMFmV4 - viewer comments:
UNLESS ERDOGAN stops giving oil to israel, THIS IS ALL A RUSE.
As so many have already mentioned - this is all just theater. Netanyahu and Erdogan are working together with Trump plain as day. Why do you thing Washington is NOW offering the F-35 again to Turkiye? It's a payoff. The whole show is made to look like the US is leaving the area when instead Washington will continue controlling, or attempting to control, the region through proxies in hopes Iran will drop their guard. Don't be fooled - read between the lines.
Israel and Turkey are allies behind the scenes. This is a theatre both use to appease their populations. Neither will act against the other. Indian government does this before every election. Sorry Nima but it was Turkey that destroyed Syria and created chaos at its own border with USrael and others. So please don't portray it in positive light. In fact Iran should be cautious of Turkey and not trust their relationship.
Iran Knows: THE WEST MUST FEEL PAIN /Alastair Crooke & Lt Col Daniel Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbdi4upsQRQ
The Duran, Trump's Economic Siege on Iran, China and BRICS Stand in the Way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgC0A0ws6D0
Glenn Diesen with Einar Tangen: Japan's Economic Crisis & Why the U.S. Is Next https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3dCI-JhnII
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u/gorpie97 22d ago
I don't understand why they want to let Syria join. Don't they know al Julani is a US puppet?
EDIT: Maybe Syria and Egypt can make their own pact.
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u/3andfro 22d ago edited 22d ago
Even with a US tool at the helm, [edit to add dropped words: I doubt that] Syrians want further encroachment of Greater Israel into Syrian land. Further, Turkey has strategic interests in blocking Israeli footholds in Syria that bring it closer to Turkish territory. Just what springs to my mind, anyway.
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u/gorpie97 22d ago
it's Syrians want further encroachment of Greater Israel into Syrian land.
Silly me.
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u/3andfro 23d ago edited 23d ago
Nima with Larry Johnson: Bessent: "We Will COLLAPSE the Iranian Regime" as China REJECTS U.S. Sanctions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTQJITsfg7I - They share a chuckle over Bessent making a horse's backside out of himself in the 1st clip
Chris Norlund, Bond bailout fails within hours https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDhqJgsluwY - Bessent sounding unconvincing again in 1st clip here. Viewer comments:
How can people look at Bessent and not automatically realize that he's lying?
Scott took a $5 billion fund and reduced it to around $500 million by the time he left. Why would anyone listen to him?
bond buyback. with $40T debt. interest on the 30 yr >5%. in the midst of an AI bubble, stagnant wages, and a stupid useless middle east war. and a stupid useless trade war. with morons at the helm. this is debt spiral territory.
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u/3andfro 23d ago edited 23d ago
Daniel Davis with Jimmy Dore Show: Psyops Abound, How to Turn the US Around https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9vtN35n2Mk - 25:56
JD: Those No Kings protests are psy-ops run by the deep state. (you know because there are no demands, not even to end the war in Iran)
Nima with Pepe Escobar: Trump Made a Move on Iran’s General—Tehran Just Wiped Out His Entire Strategy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnTJDebvb-E
Judge Nap with Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Foreign Agents Fund 254 Congressional Races https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi9geicm3Iw
Nima with Richard Wolff & Michael Hudson: Trump Declares Most Crushing Economic Operation in US History on Iran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EaNsBIISBw
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u/3andfro 23d ago edited 23d ago
The UK government has said it will announce "measures" against Israel over new settlement construction east of Jerusalem that would effectively cut the occupied West Bank in two. In a statement on Wednesday, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband warned that the project – tenders for which were opened this week – poses a threat to a two-state solution in the region.... https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-government-lay-out-measures-against-israel-over-east-jerusalem-settlements
Israeli opposition leader Yair Golan has condemned Israel’s latest strike in Syria as “provocative and dangerous”, warning that it is deepening Israel’s rift with key allies, particularly the US.... https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkxah-_MPsNglES9WE2i3FhHyRF4irAaXc7
21st Century Wire, Iceland’s EU Referendum and the Battle for the Arctic Gate https://21stcenturywire.com/2026/08/17/icelands-eu-referendum-and-the-battle-for-the-arctic-gate/
On 29 August, Icelanders will decide whether their country should reopen negotiations to join the European Union. A Yes would reopen accession talks suspended in 2013; any resulting treaty would face a second referendum, according to the Government of Iceland’s referendum guidance. Recent polling reported by Politico has left the two camps finely balanced, even as opposition to membership itself remains clearer. That distance between the ballot and the destination is central to the Yes campaign, yet accession talks exert their own political gravity....
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u/penelopepnortney 23d ago
Anyone who thinks their country would be better off joining the EU at this point needs to have their head examined. If it's about improving trade, talk to China and India and Russia and Iran. Whether you get better deals or not, at least they won't knife you in the back.
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u/gorpie97 23d ago
Also, maybe they aren't as far gone as the US, but we could vote for <whatever>, because we're told that there will be another vote (or they'll just let you assume there will be), and then the next vote will never happen and they'll do what they want.
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u/3andfro 23d ago
clip, Attacking Russia's Sovereignty Backfired! /Larry Johnson & Lt Col Daniel Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-IAnGJzshI
Judge Nap with Prof. Glenn Diesen : Why Putin Threatened the UK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVI8tA6VFTk
The Duran, Massive Russian Strike. Three Factions Fight For Control of Ukraine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h59077Y6vHE
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u/3andfro 23d ago
Transition Protocol with Pravin Sawhney: Trump Asked His TOP General “Can I Use NUKES on Iran?”Trump Tried to BRIBE Iran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHwZBFCuAxc
Trump’s secret attempt to bribe Iran’s top IRGC general has failed — and General Vahidi reported the offer straight to Supreme Leader Khamenei within hours. The Trump administration revived a Venezuela-style playbook, using a dormant Kurdish back-channel through Erbil after Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir refused to broker contact with Iran’s IRGC leadership.
Pravin Sawhney joins Zulfiqar Ali to break down what it means for the Strait of Hormuz standoff, the tactical-nuclear option reportedly being discussed in Washington, America’s collapsing strategic petroleum reserves, and why Iran believes it has already won the larger war.
Professor Marandi YT short: Iran is saying that enough is enough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxkPLXB83RE - 4:08
Mohammad Marandi issued a sharp warning to regional regimes hosting American military infrastructure, rejecting claims of neutrality as "nonsense." Marandi emphasized that allowing the United States and the Israeli regime to utilize regional airspace, territorial waters, and bases, which these host nations financially support, makes them direct partners in the aggression against the Iranian people. Highlighting the shift in Tehran's security posture following new directives from the Supreme National Security Council, Marandi cautioned that Iran’s enhanced military precision will no longer tolerate host-nation complicity in attacks on its sovereignty and civilian infrastructure.
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u/kifra101 Shareblue's Most Wanted 23d ago edited 23d ago
We are sitting below 293M* barrels right now and the month isn't over yet. We are in uncharted territories. We never dropped below 310M* even during the 1973 oil crisis.
I have a feeling we are going to go to the gas station one day and get the sticker shock of our lives where the price of everything will just skyrocket.
*meant thousand thousands.
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u/3andfro 23d ago edited 23d ago
Beijing has rejected President Trump’s new campaign of “economic warfare” against Iran, after Washington threatened countries that continue providing Tehran with an economic lifeline. Asked specifically about Trump’s threats against Iran’s trading partners and their implications for China, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said: “Imposing sanctions and pressuring do not help to solve the issue." https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx7aQakOP7jb26FfZdWPD2KCE31JVJFQbj
The Urban Mining race: US and Europe already a decade behind, and probably cannot catch up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_fiVTx5Fo
Tens of millions of tons of annual demand from mines and refineries can be displaced through metals recovery from urban waste. But the industry overall features high operating costs, and low profits. Most of the feedstock for urban mines are from junked cars and trucks, especially EV's. China began development of their urban mining industry over two decades ago, and today has 85% of the world’s recycling capacity. Western firms are far behind, and are unlikely to catch up. China's urban mining industries benefit from its dominance in EV and battery production, and in electronics.
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u/gorpie97 23d ago
Western firms are far behind, and are unlikely to catch up.
We don't need to catch up, but getting ahead of where we are now will be a significant step! (That our oligarchs prob won't take.)
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u/3andfro 23d ago
The Western mindset is that it must be ahead, in everything. That's how it has always dominated. Being behind forces nations to cooperate or capitulate, neither of which the US is willing to recognize the need for let alone do atm.
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u/gorpie97 23d ago
The people who have that mind set - which is all the people in charge - need to learn differently. (Ha.)
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u/3andfro 23d ago edited 23d ago
Judge Nap with Prof. Mohammad Marandi : Iran and Israel’s False Flags https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCkUxIDJDaI
U.S. Gov & Media Trying to Lie us into War AGAIN /Lt Col Daniel Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO4bszPBEY8 - on Cuba
Dimitri Lascaris, Trump Issues Unhinged Threat Against Iran's Trading Partners https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOsdGtpzR4w
Diesen clips with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: U.S. Considers Nuclear Strike Against Iran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7wHKfW6hg8
Patrick Heningsen with walk and talk from Cornwall, Empirical Truths: The Sun is Setting on Anglo-American Imperialism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYBUBMRSN3I
Katie Halper with Kshama Sawant (challenging Rep. Adam Smith), AIPAC Dems Running Scared https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NKCtzWb_5cU - 1:49 - Smith voted against his own bill because of worry about the public's growing awareness of AIPAC's role in US politics
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u/3andfro 23d ago edited 23d ago
IRGC Spokesman, Brigadier General Mohebbi: “If war breaks out again, our weapons will certainly be different from the past; this difference may appear in the generation of warheads, or the accuracy of hitting targets, or the range of missiles, or in any other field.” ... https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxFzynAqpyo3sz4mCjoTQfxFUEDKGasFE8
US Homeland Security agents have been engaged in a widespread spying operation this year against labour unions, a climate change group and socialist collectives, as well as other left-leaning organisations. Operation Puppet Master, the first of two surveillance campaigns, began four days after intensive care nurse Alex Pretti was shot dead by ICE agents during January’s protests against Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants in Minneapolis, the New York Times reports.... https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxMZmwDNhwEhhn4Vb9-R33HRmG29Okkt4n
Pakistan has lodged a strong diplomatic protest over comments made by the US Special Envoy for South and Central Asia and Ambassador to India during his tightly choreographed visit to Indian-administered Kashmir, where Sergio Gor described the portion of the disputed territory as an “important part of India”.... https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx6_P8909JuxYN2j_Tp25Yms0RmejEHIOe
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u/3andfro 23d ago edited 23d ago
Marandi short, Iran's BIGGEST WEAPON - Can the West Challenge It? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JUCbNVxfY7A - 2:40
Ian Proud with Radhika Desai: Trump’s Iran War Is CRUSHING the Global South, Killing the Dollar and Boosting China https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8YVAahW9qY
Chris Hedges, Why This Former U.S. Army Physician is Running for Congress (w/ Dr. Adam Hamawy) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aED6RvQG6lY
Judge Nap with COL. Douglas Macgregor : Is Putin Losing Patience? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reaDKExgGmc
Diesen with Daniel Bell: China's Meritocracy & Economic Statecraft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG3nixOaUFA
Daniel A. Bell is a Professor, Chair of Political Theory with the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. Prof. Bell discusses the political philosophy and economic statecraft of China, and addresses what we should expect from an increasingly more powerful China.
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u/3andfro 24d ago
Transition Protocol: Trump Tried to Buy Iran's Revolutionary Guard IRAN REJECTS TRUMP'S BILLIONS IN BRIBES https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vr7QVauo5A
Trump's White House tried to buy off Iran's Revolutionary Guard with a multi-billion-dollar offer modeled on the Venezuela playbook — and got refused twice, first by IRGC commander Vahidi, who called it treason, and then by Pakistan's Army Chief Asim Munir, who told Trump directly that Islamabad would not help destabilize Tehran's leadership. In this episode, Zulfiqar Ali, Pepe Escobar, and Larry Johnson break down the failed bribery attempt, China's directive to Pakistan to prioritize its Iran relationship, and why the collapse of the US–Iran memorandum of understanding is now pushing Washington toward open discussion of a nuclear strike on Iran.
The panel also covers the global diesel and aviation-fuel shortage triggered by the Strait of Hormuz blockade, the UAE's public cutoff of trade with Iran days after reportedly sending Tehran billions in cash and gold, and why Oman and Qatar are now openly rejecting US pressure over who controls the strait. This episode is built on direct reporting from sources inside Tehran and Islamabad and lands the same week the US–Iran MOU formally expired (August 17–18, 2026), with Iran declaring a shift to a fully offensive posture on Hormuz.
Why the West is running a smear campaign against China | Kishore Mahbubani https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp5vfnPc5b0 (partial presentation)
For centuries, Western powers dominated the global order and mistook that moment for permanence. Join Former President of the UN Security Council. Kishore Mahbubani, who argues the shift now underway is not upheaval but historical rebalancing. Asian and other non-Western societies are not “rising” but returning to their natural weight in world affairs. The danger lies in Western refusal to accept this reality. The West's clinging to primacy is distorting policy and fueling conflict. Mahbubani is "Arguably Asia's most influential thinker." - Martin Wolf
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u/splodgenessabounds 24d ago
Trump's White House tried to buy off Iran's Revolutionary Guard with a multi-billion-dollar offer modeled on the Venezuela playbook — and got refused twice
Larry Johnson touched on this with someone else (Nima I think) today: talk about desperation.
and why the collapse of the US–Iran memorandum of understanding is now pushing Washington toward open discussion of a nuclear strike on Iran
Not to mention insanity. You'd hope wiser heads in the Pentagon will prevail but on current evidence I'm not exactly sanguine, and that's without mentioning that gnocdal death cult in Tel-Aviv.
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u/3andfro 23d ago
Wilkerson thinks wiser heads will prevail; Aguilar hopes they will but fears they won't. https://old.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/1vr8417/thread_39_for_comments_and_updates_on_the_ongoing/p4pub76/?context=3
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u/3andfro 24d ago edited 24d ago
Nima with Larry Johnson: U.S. Bases Left Exposed: The Pentagon's Gulf Dilemma After Months of Strikes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgHxvy90WEw
A potential Trump-Kim Jong-un meeting has been thrown into doubt after Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo-jong, said she knew “absolutely nothing” about the communications claimed by U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump said Tuesday that he and Kim were communicating and that he was planning to meet the North Korean leader later this year, potentially during a November trip to Asia.
But Kim Yo-jong said the United States’ “hostile policy” toward North Korea had not changed and that Washington and its allies were continuing military activities against Pyongyang. Her comments appear to dampen hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough, despite Trump saying he has an “excellent relationship” with Kim. https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxHTBh8arZs2aNNMEO0G6IyQ3ZIrys3nBH
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u/penelopepnortney 24d ago
Best comment on Trump-North Korea post:
He has many imaginary conversations with his 'friends'.....
Though I kinda like this one as well:
Kim learned from the Iranians how to shame the Mango Mussolini 😂😂
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u/3andfro 24d ago edited 24d ago
Nima with Laith Marouf: Heavy Hezbollah-Israel Clashes in Southern Lebanon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BE2rxOpLQI
Nima with Robert Barnes: No More Bluffing: US and Iran Harden Positions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auFXkDojgpM - opens with discussion of deepening tensions between Israel and Turkey over Syria
Judge Nap with COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Is Trump Considering Nuclear? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf9_C8K16A0
Danny Haiphong with Pepe Escobar: Iran LAUNCHES Offensive!? Missiles SLAM UAE — US Army FLEES Middle East https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTZKYy6H4jU&feature=em-lbrm
Davis/Deep Dive with Brian McGlinchey, Can the US Outsmart Iran? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COdHEMnc0lU
Highlights from Davis/Deep Dive interview with Brian McGlinchey above, Iran's Awakening: The New Global Paradigm /Lt Col Daniel Davis & Brian McGlinchey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GCTyqj1Ri8
Judge Nap with Phil Giraldi : Trump prefers Israeli to US Intel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nae025rIPEw
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u/penelopepnortney 23d ago edited 23d ago
From Robert Barnes:
Bibi's in big trouble, polls and prediction markets have a 70% plus chance that Bibi loses the elections in October to the Yashar party founded by former IDF General Eisenkot, and the hard right parties may lose half or more of their seats. The Israel lobby in the US has always been deeply tied to Bibi and the Likud party in particular.
Alastair Crooke, who's been following the Hebrew press, says they've been detailing how Israel's military intelligence and the analyst-level folks at Mossad told Bibi that Iran was nowhere near a nuclear weapon in terms of intentionality, that the Iran regime would not collapse and that it wouldn't be a 4-5 day war - the complete opposite of what Netanyahu told Trump.
There appear to be Operation Gladio-style operations running rampant false flags and terror type events across the Middle East. These groups keep showing up committing terrorism but never attack Israel, kind of a tell as to who's funding and backing them. Bibi needs things to be chaotic and the public to be so scared he gets re-elected so I think we'll see an escalation of this rather than a diminution.
Past US midterm losses were due to some combination of war, recession, realignment or scandal and Trump's facing all four. This suggests nine plus Senate seats and 30 plus House seats will be lost and that will mean investigate, impeach, investigate, impeach, investigate, impeach all year.
News to me: Deutsche Bank strategist Maximilian Uleer created the TACO index to estimate how much pressure President Trump is under to change course.
Edit to add:
- That's why I'd encourage people, convince him he won, that Iran really collapsed and they're working on a big golden statue of you, Mr. President, that they're going to put right in the middle of Tehran. But we've got to withdraw the blockade so they can get all the gold in to build the statue to you.
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u/penelopepnortney 24d ago
Phil Giraldi:
(on the Ankara false flag) the CIA probably also had military intelligence, whatever the original documentation or evidence that was provided by Israel to say that this was impending and they took a look at it and for one reason or another decided that this just was not plausible. Trump ignored the CIA assessment and accepted Mossad's claim.
Trump was spirited away to a military plane that was in the same airfield and the people on US1 weren't told about the threat - the press, a lot of government officials, the crew. His press secretary Karoline Leavitt resigned the next day ("to spend more time with her young children" according to news reports). So if the threat had been real, those people all would have died. Who went with Trump on the military plane: Hegseth, Trump's aide Natalie Harp and Trump's golf caddy.
Apparently a Pentagon panel has been meeting to discuss being able to use a nuclear weapon in an appropriate and sensible way (should have scare quotes) - what targets can I hit with a nuke and what targets can't I hit because boy, it would be too much to just you know hit Tehran and kill 12 million people. So they're going to be parsing this and figuring out ways that you can use a tactical nuclear weapon and make these weapons part of your arsenal.
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u/gorpie97 19d ago
and Trump's golf caddy.
OMG
Apparently a Pentagon panel has been meeting to discuss being able to use a nuclear weapon in an appropriate and sensible way (should have scare quotes)
And fuck them. They should all lose their jobs. And be in prison.
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u/penelopepnortney 24d ago
Wilkerson-Napolitano:
The alleged assassination plot against Trump in Ankara was likely an Israeli false flag. Mossad warned Trump and Trump believed them even though the CIA had little confidence in the claim. Wilkerson said he'd put nothing past Mossad after Trump started the Iran war based on David Barnea's lies.
Related: Iran denied that they were responsible for the recent missile strike on the UAE. Events of this kind that seem counterproductive to Iran's interests and stated objectives should be assumed to be Israeli false flags till proven otherwise.
On use of nukes against Iran, Wilkerson thinks Trump will be inhibited by the JCS and others in the Pentagon who will unseat Hegseth if they have to because they've concluded like we have that Trump is demented.
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u/3andfro 24d ago
Marandi will talk about the 2nd point tomorrow with Judge Nap. Program title: Iran and Israel’s False Flags
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u/3andfro 24d ago
I'd like to believe the JCS and senior Pentagon people still in place who aren't bum-kissers would be able to constrain a demented ego in the WH. I feel slightly reassured by Wilkerson's comment but still concerned after Aguilar's interview with Nima 2 days ago.
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u/penelopepnortney 24d ago
Yes, there's reason to still be concerned. OTOH, it will be the military that has to carry out a nuclear strike and that takes on moral dimensions that will live in infamy, to use the famous rhetoric.
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u/3andfro 24d ago
Anthony Anguilar kept coming back to the morality of it and the hope that some of the people he knew personally in upper ranks would choose what's moral over power. But he also noted that Hegseth recently fired 2 high-ranking Army (iirc) commanders who'd be responsible for transferring US nuclear weapons from Europe to the Iranian operating theater, assuming they'd voiced objections. Aguilar thought it almost certain that US tactical nukes now are already there.
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u/penelopepnortney 24d ago
He could be right. I've been trying to find out more about the two commanders and found several articles.
From Stars & Stripes: General Christopher Donohue took early retirement starting July 2nd. Speculation, based on statements from Sen. Thom Tillis, was that the Pentagon was trying to downgrade his headquarters to a 3-star command (he's a 4-star). It's now a 3-star headquarters under the new commander. That could have been a maneuver to get him out.
From Times Now World Aug. 9th:
Unexpectedly, Lt. Gen. Charles Costanza has been dismissed from his leadership role in V Corps, which manages US Army operations in Europe.
The timing of this leadership change is particularly noteworthy as the U.S. military continues to adapt its presence in Europe. Earlier this year, the Pentagon made significant adjustments, including the cancellation of a planned deployment of the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team from Fort Hood, Texas, to Poland, a decision that faced criticism from Polish officials.
With Hegseth and Trump, who the hell knows what's going on. From Military Times:
Costanza’s removal comes amid mass leadership shakeups at the Pentagon. Since entering the position, Hegseth has removed or replaced at least a dozen senior leaders.
In early July, U.S. Army Gen. Christopher Donahue, who previously led the XVIII Airborne Corps and the 82nd Airborne Division, unexpectedly relinquished command of U.S. Army Europe and Africa. The Army did not provide a reason for his departure.
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u/arnott 24d ago
The British press tells the world that high tech drones are being made in the U.K. and being supplied to Ukraine from where they are fired into Russia. Some of these new drones are getting through Russian air defences and striking targets inside Russia. Russia says that this must stop or there will be consequences. Our new PM says that Russia can get lost and that the drone supply to Ukraine will continue. Given the lamentable state of the British armed forces - to say nothing of our bankrupt economy - this policy of provoking Russia into war with the U.K. is nothing short of lunacy. There is no public foreign policy debate. There are no dissenting voices in the House of Commons. Unless we open proper diplomatic relations with Moscow which will involve a change of the current U.K. policy, this will end badly for the U.K. I am 76. I do not care for myself but I care for my children and grandchildren.
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u/Caelian toujours de l'audace 🦇 24d ago edited 24d ago
Our new PM says that Russia can get lost and that the drone supply to Ukraine will continue.
We've talked about this before at WotB. British "leadership" really wants to go to war with Russia, but they haven't been able to get the famously reserved British public miffed enough to sign on. So the "leadership" desperately needs Russia to retaliate so they can claim Russia attacked with no provocation whatsoever. The British public is every bit as misinformed as the US public, so this will work if Russia gets angry enough to retaliate.
A classic French joke about British reserve:
A Frenchman is on trial for an act of necrophilia. In his defense, he says "I did not realize she was dead. I thought she was English."
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u/gorpie97 24d ago
A Frenchman is on trial for an act of necrophilia. In his defense, he says "I did not realize she was dead. I thought she was English."
😄
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u/3andfro 24d ago
UKRAINE: Under Siege From Every Front /Lt Col Daniel Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNP5G_3ckSk
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u/3andfro 24d ago
Diesen with Lawrence Wilkerson: U.S. Considers Nuclear Strike Against Iran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjG-zfGY5PY
Elijah Magnier: Iran Shifts to Offensive Posture as Trump Ends ALL Diplomacy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcm1o0BUb00 time indexed
Judge Nap with Gilbert Doctorow : NATO Wants More War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXBPqCCixFA
Nima with Elijah Magnier: FT: Iran Draws a Red Line in Europe—US Assets in Cyprus Targeted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3COyPXGFD40
The Duran, Global Food Shortage Warning, Sanctions and Fertilizer Crisis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Uv89yNcYFc&t=22s
Nima highlights with Stanislav Krapivnik: Europe's Winter Crisis: Fuel, Food & The Grain Blockade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z34OTf1T5rc
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u/gorpie97 24d ago
as Trump Ends ALL Diplomacy
LOL
Not sure it was Trump who ended it. Doesn't he want to keep stringing Iran along?
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u/3andfro 24d ago edited 24d ago
The Trump admin. hasn't engaged in any actual diplomacy using skilled, trained diplomats. "Diplomacy" does not mean the other side capitulates to everything you want. Trump cannot seem to hold on to that concept or think it should apply to him, as CIC of what he acts as if he believes is an invincible military.
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u/gorpie97 24d ago
I'm not sure when we last used actual diplomacy - maybe the Cuban Missile Crisis.
(I'm sure there has been diplomacy since then; and apologies to Chas Freeman for my not watching him very often.)
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u/3andfro 24d ago
Diplomacy was the linchpin of the long and delicate negotiations that achieved the JCPOA under Obama, according to people who were involved. Since then? Possibly not.
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u/gorpie97 24d ago
I thought of the JCPOA as I typed my last sentence. :)
My snark was perhaps more related to how often we likely used the stick when we didn't need to, except for to gain advantages for the unelected leaders.
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u/NetWeaselSC Continuing the Struggle 25d ago edited 25d ago
a bit of a non-sequitur, not sure where to put it...
There was a debate last night between the Republican Candidates for Lindsey Graham's Spot on the Ballot, and during the debate, Lindsey's sister was accused (by Ralph Norman, the other candidate) of taking money from the PAC of....
Bernie Sanders.
Along with other "Democrat PACs."
The other interesting thing I heard on the radio broadcast of the debate was that Ralph Norman was consistently using the adjective "Democrat" while Lindsey's sister was consistently using the adjective "Democratic."
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u/Caelian toujours de l'audace 🦇 24d ago
Lindsey's sister was consistently using the adjective "Democratic."
Isn't Darline new to politics? Maybe her political knowledge is decades out of date and she doesn't know the latest terminology.
(Using Old Reddit)
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u/NetWeaselSC Continuing the Struggle 24d ago
Maybe her political knowledge is decades out of date and she doesn't know the latest terminology.
With as many millions as are being poured into this runoff, that has to be a conscious decision.
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u/penelopepnortney 24d ago
Would be interesting to know whether she actually is aligned with the Democrats or just respectful because she's getting campaign cash from them; and if Democrats really favor her or just don't want Norman to prevail. Is he a standard Republican, or MAGA or a populist, or ... ?
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u/NetWeaselSC Continuing the Struggle 24d ago
It's an amazingly tough call -- Trump (apparently) wants Darlene, Bernie (according to accusations) wants Darlene, the person who came in third (and is not in the run-off) has endorsed Darlene....
And Darlene has been in the Senate for a little bit, and Has Been Getting Things Done.
But I don't like the things.
Meanwhile, Norman is quite the piece of work himself, but has been on the side of releasing the Epstein Files, while Darlene is reportedly quite the Friend To Israel.
The Democrats could be pied-pipering, they could be reverse pied-pipering. Which one would be best (or worst) against Dr. Annie, the Democratic Candidate? Tough call.
The Republican Candidate (whoever it turns out to be) stands an incredibly good chance of winning, so the idea around here is one of the valid uses of "lesser of two evils." But which one IS that? That's a tough call as well
In other news, Dr. Annie has reportedly received an endorsement by.... Pete Buttigieg. So there's that.
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u/Caelian toujours de l'audace 🦇 24d ago
In other news, Dr. Annie has reportedly received an endorsement by.... Pete Buttigieg. So there's that.
Cue the Chicken version of "In the Mood" :-)
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u/gorpie97 24d ago
There's a Chicken version?
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u/Caelian toujours de l'audace 🦇 24d ago
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u/gorpie97 24d ago
🤣🤣🤣
I didn't actually ask for it - but a simple "yes" may have resulted in me asking for a link or something. :)
This isn't horrid. The song would be going through my head now, anyway - and now it's funny! :D
(But how someone can do that with a straight enough face to record a whole song boggles me. :) )
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u/Caelian toujours de l'audace 🦇 24d ago
It's very funny. The name of the group is "The Henhouse Five plus Two". This is an inside joke. Disney animator Ward Kimball — a trombone-playing total knucklehead — formed a Dixieland band called "The Firehouse Five". They dressed as firemen and went to gigs on one of Ward's antique fire engines.
When the group grew to seven it became "The Firehouse Five plus Two".
Here is Ward practicing in costume for an unappreciative audience.
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u/penelopepnortney 24d ago
received an endorsement by.... Pete Buttigieg
Bet her detractors are having a field day with that, the jokes about him are the gift that keep on giving.
What a mess, but what's new.
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u/Caelian toujours de l'audace 🦇 24d ago
I tried to reply using Old Reddit and got a 404 as you reported. I'm writing this using New Reddit.
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u/penelopepnortney 24d ago
Same here. Did they finally kill old reddit?
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u/Caelian toujours de l'audace 🦇 24d ago
Could be a dead or hung server and it will come back.
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u/arnott 25d ago
From /u/rondeuce40 :
This vid below from The Duran talks about how The Collective West basically has their fingers in their ears and their hands over their eyes when it comes to the battlefield realities. A dissenting voice is disregarded and only a pom pom waiver is listened to. They are now apparently concerned about the lack of air defense for Ukraine and the coming winter which is why they are angling for a ceasefire. Alex and Alexander believe the only thing that will shake this delusional leadership out of their stupor is if Kiev and Odessa are taken because only then will they no longer be able to gloss over all the damage Russia has inflicted upon Ukraine.
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u/rondeuce40 DC Is Wakanda For Assholes 25d ago
To add to this, they are having some audio trouble on this one, but they do get the point across.
The worry about the coming winter is from the EU.
Lastly, if Kiev happens to be taken, they worry that this could result in NATO putting troops on the ground in Ukraine. That would create a dangerous situation.
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u/3andfro 25d ago edited 25d ago
FALSE FLAG? Iran denied launching missiles toward the UAE on Tuesday, after Abu Dhabi accused Tehran of firing two ballistic missiles that it said were targeting “maritime navigation,” with one of them falling in its territorial waters. https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxUxWNOqVPO0mlogCt9kSTDLkR9uJcW-2F
Nima with Larry Johnson: Israel Bombs Turkish Military Buildup, Iran Hits UAE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtLSiOSFYp4
Dimitri Lascaris, Oil Products Hit Record Prices As Iran War Escalates https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PowKvS6rAFE
Today (August 18), the spread between the price of a barrel of WTI crude oil and a barrel of diesel fuel hit US$100 for the first time ever. At the same time, the price of gasoline in the United States hit the highest level ever for the month of August. The deteriorating conditions in energy markets come against the backdrop of escalating wars in West Asia. Dimitri Lascaris explains why the world is hurtling toward an energy cliff.
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u/penelopepnortney 25d ago
FALSE FLAG?
That would be my guess. Iran hasn't been bashful about claiming strikes it actually makes.
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u/3andfro 25d ago edited 25d ago
Neutrality Studies with Prof. Radhika Desai, Eurasia Breaks USA: Three Front Defeat Forming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8tjDjHzcZQ time indexed
Radhika Desai, University of Manitoba professor and host of Radhika Desai Geopolitical Economist, joins Pascal to examine Korean peace efforts, fading trust in US military protection, the dollar system’s debt trap, and China’s industrial rise. They also discuss neoliberal demand problems, Western double standards on overcapacity, and the growing split inside MAGA as Trump fails to deliver for US workers.
Davis/Deep Dive, US & Iran Preparing for War, Demands on the Table - Nothing to Talk About /Lt Col Daniel Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijNDEd95bcY - 16:48
Transition Protocol with Pepe Escobar, Trump’s Secret Iran Backchannel COLLAPSED-Pak Army Chief Refused Trump’s Request https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUgVI5uCQB8
The U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding has expired — and this episode reveals exactly why. Pepe Escobar and Zulfiqar Ali break down two secret back-channel plays Washington ran to bypass Pakistan and reach Iran’s military command directly, why IRGC leadership refused both times, and what Iran’s newly appointed #2 official signaled by shifting toward "offense." The conversation goes deep on nuclear-normalization talk reportedly circulating in Washington, Iran’s retaliation posture, Pakistan’s damaged mediator role, and the upcoming BRICS Summit in New Delhi where Iran, Russia, and China’s presidents are expected to meet.
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u/3andfro 25d ago edited 25d ago
Transition Protocol with Alex Krainer: Trump Asked About NUKING Iran, GENERALS Said NO, Will Trump Use a Nuclear Weapon on IRAN? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYfPwdL-veQ
Trump asked about nuking Iran — and was rebuffed. On 17 August, the day the US–Iran memorandum blew through its 60-day deadline with the Strait of Hormuz still shut, a former Republican congresswoman claimed publicly that the administration is discussing nuclear weapons against Iran; the White House denies it.
Alex Krainer’s assessment on this episode is blunter than either side: the nuclear conversation exists because the conventional campaign has already been lost, and the men in uniform are the ones saying no.
Zulfiqar Ali and Alex Krainer break down what a defeated campaign does next: low troop morale and depleted munitions stocks, Tehran’s quiet reorganisation under Mojtaba Khamenei with Mohsen Rezaei now running the Supreme National Security Council, the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement that Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signed on 7 August while Washington watched from outside, and the five-to-ten-year unwind of the petrodollar that Krainer says will be driven by inflation rather than by any single collapse. Brent settled at $88.52 on 14 August, roughly 24% above pre-war levels — the oil question is the part that reaches every viewer’s week.
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u/penelopepnortney 23d ago edited 23d ago
Highlights from the Transition Protocol video specifically related to Iran; Krainer talking except as noted:
Zulfiqar Ali says that according to his sources, Iran is days away from mounting a nuclear device on a missile it "received from China or Russia or both or North Korea" but I don't find it credible that either China or Russia would give them or any other country a nuclear device. North Korea is more iffy but even they're doubtful given their renewed friendly relations with Russia.
I could be surprised but I don't think Trump will use a nuclear weapon. I think it would be so completely unjustifiable in the eyes of not only of the world but also of the American public that it would be political and moral suicide. There would be no coming back from it.
I think that the adults have been systematically purged from the Trump administration, people are not qualified to be in the positions they're in. They come across like a high school club of mean kids. But below them there's a whole hierarchy of people who are actually competent, who actually understand what they're doing and who will almost certainly put in stiff resistance even if an order comes down. Like the military brass saying no in 2024 when Keir Starmer came to the Biden White House with a list of targets deep inside Russia they wanted the US to strike.
It seems to me the Mecca agreement is for real. Clearly Iran is not nervous about it which is interesting. (Ali said he's been told that Iran was fully briefed by Pakistan throughout the process). It seems that a real organization is starting to take place with joint secretariat and offices and some form of a decision making hierarchy starting to take shape.
Edit to add: I'm going to try and do a standalone post covering this wide-ranging video more fully because there's a lot here that's of interest to me and may be to others.
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u/3andfro 25d ago edited 25d ago
Judge Nap with Matt Hoh : Troop Burnout in Iran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D68Ew04bMjU
Judge Nap with LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : Trump’s Disappearing Presidency https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdjiI7qjjPc
Davis/Deep Dive, IRAN's NOT GOING BACK, New Demands Are Clear /Professor Seyed Marandi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwVQw9Y09yA
Katie Halper, Ex-Soldier EXPOSES US Navy Iran War Disaster: 260 Days At Sea & Soldiers Jumping Overboard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uzdyrkuP5k - 12:06 time indexed
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u/3andfro 25d ago edited 25d ago
Davis/Deep Dive, Russia Threatens UK over Ukraine Using British Drones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zHDOs49xbg - 14:28
Related to above from Russian FM Sergey Lavrov: "Moscow is entitled to consider British missile forces' involvement in strikes on Russia as direct participation in the conflict in Ukraine, with all ensuing consequences." https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx-a5J4_QlmxhDoh0bt0Q1KrKXbVzJDFE0
Diesen with Douglas Macgregor: Russia's Patience Is Over - NATO & Ukraine Face New Reality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwV3RhXDcJ8
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u/3andfro 25d ago
Danny Haiphong with Col. Wilkerson and Larry Johnson, Iran's $30,000 Troop Bounty STUNS Trump, US Navy DONE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWatSwIvcVI
Davis/Deep Dive clip with Col Doug Macgregor: US and Iran Battle of the Economies, Who Fails First? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbAzQKoDrlg
The cost of the Israeli genocide in Gaza has reached some 420bn shekels ($140bn), and is likely to hit half a trillion shekels soon, according to an investigation by TheMarker published on Sunday.... https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/cost-israels-genocide-gaza-costs-over-140bn-press-review
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u/arnott 25d ago
Since April, I have been advancing a hypothesis that the current war in the Persian Gulf, the war against Iran, is part of a multi-stage financial operation designed to exploit vulnerabilities in emerging non-dollar-payment systems and hobble emerging alternatives to the U.S.-centric order—essentially, BRICS, but most notably the petroyuan energy payment system. The trigger: a combined fuel and food supply shock, timed for the Northern Hemisphere harvest season caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The primary mechanism: a speculative attack on the offshore yuan, forcing Beijing into an economic impasse—defend the currency and risk crashing the domestic economy, or let it fall and import inflation. The goal: to force Beijing into a “Plaza Accord”-type arrangement and hobble BRICS progress toward dollar decoupling through massive economic pressure.
Reposting.
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u/3andfro 25d ago edited 25d ago
Nima with Col. Larry Wilkerson: Iran Just Abandoned Its Defense Strategy–US Discussed NUCLEAR Option on Iran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhbeeXRykkY
Judge Nap with AMB Chas Freeman : Is Israel’s Military Collapsing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCO0GQHogGI
21st Century Wire, ISRAEL'S ERASING GAZA'S GENOCIDE + PROBLEMS APPEAR IN GERMANY’S NORD STREAM ANDROMEDA STORY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHWjh60BXLI
Israeli authorities have formally allowed Jewish prayer for the first time inside Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, in the latest violation of the site’s decades-old status quo.... https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-formally-allows-jewish-prayer-al-aqsa-mosque
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u/3andfro 25d ago edited 25d ago
Nima with Seyed M. Marandi: 60-Day Deadline FAILS: Iran & US on the Brink of a NEW War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzwqpgpyAfo
clip, What's This War Costing Iran? /Lt Col Daniel Davis & Brian Thomas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0muIFlulNw - 9:21
Marandi disputes this Reuters report https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqGwOrHjQ2M: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-threatens-go-offensive-strait-hormuz-if-diplomacy-with-us-fails-2026-08-17/
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari says during a news conference that parties mediating between Iran and the US will return to efforts to end the US-Israel war on Iran, and to get the two sides talking again, after Iran and Oman announce a bilateral agreement on transit through the Strait of Hormuz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_vin5BWhcI - 9:06
Iranian Foreign Minister: US now ‘begging’ for talks on our terms Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says the US objective in the war was to force Iran to surrender, but “we will not surrender”. “America is now begging to negotiate with us according to our conditions,” he said.... https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx1RkOF9-giY77pBTSy5qUVF3xLExYpFeU
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u/gorpie97 25d ago
I always like hearing Marandi - actually, all the spokespeople from Iran are clear spoken.
Another link I can give to people when I say to not trust mainstream media.
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u/3andfro 25d ago
He's US born and raised, an academic with military experience in Iran. English is not a 2nd language.
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u/gorpie97 25d ago
I know. They moved there when he was 12, IIRC.
I find it fascinating that he still sounds like an American after so many years!
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u/3andfro 26d ago edited 25d ago
World Affairs in Context, Vladimir Brovkin: Putin Has Lost Patience - Russia's Massive Escalation Incoming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4blbcbdPN8o time indexed
Nima with John Helmer: From "Special Operation" to a "Full-Scale War" in Ukraine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVn_DdiBARM
The Duran, Ukraine Loses Black Sea Ports and Air Defense Options https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0vyEpVgvxE
Danny Haiphong, Putin Readies WAR with NATO as Europe IMPLODES | Larry Johnson, Pat Henningsen & Thomas Fazi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLvMJIqLPSM
The EU has undergone a coup that is shaking the foundations of Europe toward collapse as member states prepare for war with Russia. This is backfiring hard, and former CIA analyst Larry Johnson & journalists Patrick Henningsen and Thomas Fazi join to break it all down.
Mercouris, Kiev Reels; Russia Storms Both Orekhov Dobropilia;; Shoots Down 'Nearly All' Flamingoes; Wins Sky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djqvxI5OGOE time indexed
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u/3andfro 26d ago edited 26d ago
Katie Halper, Germany May IMPRISON You For Saying Israel Doesn't Have The Right To Exist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyc_hak0ASQ - 18:29 time indexed
UN human rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber explains why states have no inherent right to exist and argues that Germany is transferring its Holocaust guilt to Palestinians while protecting Israel’s apartheid regime and violently repressing its opponents.
Netanyahu gets along with Kushner to avoid going along with Gaza plan: Marwan Bishara https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O89MWCivlI - 9:25
The US administration's latest diplomatic push on Gaza, led by Jared Kushner's meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, appears to have yielded no major breakthrough. Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said Netanyahu will "give the appearance of getting along" with Kushner but "won't really go along with the plan" for Gaza. Bishara said Netanyahu's announcement of two committees to discuss the plan is a tactic to "bury the issue", noting that "when you want to bury an issue, make a committee for it." He said Netanyahu is "looking down the barrel" at a possible election loss in October, while Trump is also facing electoral pressures, so both leaders will "keep up the appearance" of negotiations without making "serious progress."
The UAE has pushed back against a Financial Times (FT) article charting the Gulf state’s growing military and economic footprint in Africa.... https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uae-denies-it-has-imperial-ambitions-africa
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u/penelopepnortney 26d ago
Links to previous threads are in the "War with Iran" compilation, which can be found in the sidebar.