It is not the spirits of heaven and of hell which are the masters over physical nature, but the spirit of man which is concealed in him as the fire is concealed in the flint.
-- Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim, called Paracelsus the Great
Under pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran. The target would be Pickax Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program. No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike. Netanyahu has been pushing hard for one. โBibi calls Trump about it every day,โ says an informed observer.
Netanyahu is cornered and desperate. After last weekโs election results, he canโt form a government unless Trump intervenes directly in Israeli politics and brokers a deal with other parties that gives Netanyahu 61 seats in the Knesset. Otherwise, he is out as prime minister and on his way to ignominy, investigations and possibly jail. Netanyahu must stay close to Trump. He needs this war.
To that end, heโs applied maximum pressure to his closest allies in the administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper. Both oppose a negotiated settlement to the war theyโve so grievously mismanaged; both are pushing to restart major combat operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe are also following Netanyahuโs lead, as are leaders of the Democratic Party. In a recent meeting on the subject, former president Barack Obama said he opposes the current Iran peace deal being drafted in Doha.
The rest of Americaโs longtime allies in the Middle East are terrified by the prospect of more war. On September 27th, Netanyahu flew secretly to Abu Dhabi to enlist the UAE in his lobbying effort for a final attack on Iran. The Emiratis refused. After eight months of conflict, Gulf economies are teetering. So are global energy and fertilizer markets. They wonโt recover soon. Globally, there are a total of about 850 supertankers used to transport oil from producers to the rest of the world. In October alone, 11 of them were badly damaged in Hormuz. At this pace, a global depression is imminent. A nuclear strike would radically accelerate the destruction. Fallout from a ground explosion at Pickax Mountain would contaminate the Persian Gulf, poisoning the water supply for 100 million people.
And those are just some of the immediate consequences for the region. The rest of the world is every bit as exposed. No country other than the United States has ever used a nuclear weapon in war. Some would like to. An American nuclear attack on Iran would set a new precedent. The Russians have already told at least two other governments that an American nuclear strike on Iran would free them to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Pakistan and India would be tempted to do the same against each other, as would North Korea against Seoul. After the first nuclear strike, World War Three is inevitable. That war would be short and final.
Weโve been sleepwalking toward this moment for months. Since February, the administration has quietly rewritten Americaโs nuclear doctrine to make first use of so-called โbattlefield nukesโ easier and therefore more likely. No one in Washington in either party seems bothered by this. Now weโre on the brink of it.
Close observers say Trump is likely to decide by next weekend whether or not to use nuclear weapons. That would be November 7, six days from now. To his credit, heโs hesitating. At the moment, Trump is listening to his vice president, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made.
Theyโre right, though it wonโt be simple. The Iranians are famously frustrating to negotiate with under any circumstances, and elements of that government have become more radical since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family were killed in February. After decades of isolation, even relatively moderate Iranian leaders seem confused by how decisions are made in the West. (There is a widespread belief in Tehran, for example, that the United States government controls Israel.) But overall, people who have spoken to decision-makers in Iran say there is consensus there that more war is bad for everyone and a deal is worth making.
One group that hasnโt been consulted so far is the global population โ the hundreds of millions of people who will be killed along with their children if Trump is pushed by Netanyahu into launching a nuclear strike next week. Now would be the time for them to speak up.
November 2, 1987.
Ingo went to bed at eight, woke at four in the morning, took a bath, and returned to sleep.
When he woke again around eight, he closed his eyes, and something extraordinary happened.
Against what he described as a โlucid black field,โ beautiful formations of light began appearing.
He had seen lights during similar experiences before, but these were different.
Instead of fractured, jagged shapes, they were exquisitely organized and symmetrical, resembling stars with rays extending outward and circular formations within them.
One appeared, disappeared, and was replaced by another.
Ingo ended his journal entry with a remarkable observation:
โIn all my imaginal experiences I have never experienced anything of such beauty such as these forms.โ
From Ingoโs waking dream work. Artwork inspired by Ingoโs original drawing accompanying the entry.
@GoHappyAlways Strange he canโt stop the Iran war. So
Embarrassing. How could he have won the Vietnam War in a week. And the Afghans war. Stop lying . Win the Iran war. Trump started it. Now fix it.
Talarico has Musk funding his opponentโs campaign and Putin funding social media slanders against him โ Talarico must be something special to have the worldโs two most powerful oligarchs lined up against him.