Grey Viewpoint

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

March 1, 2026

If World War III begins, Taiwan won’t be the trigger. Too many great-power interests collide in a narrow corridor where critical energy flows and global trade routes run. That hub is the Middle East.

Rejoicing at Khamenei’s death is foolish. In the Shiite political and cultural code, a leader’s death is often turned not into “the end,” but into a resource: the image of a martyr, sacral legitimacy, mobilization through mourning, and the logic of revenge in the fight against “infidels.” That doesn’t lower tension — it can raise it.

Whatever the U.S. calls what’s happening, Iran is only the pretext. The goals are pragmatic and clear: oil and Hormuz, pressure on China, reshaping alliances, domestic mobilization in the U.S., control through escalation.

But Iran is not Venezuela. Victory can be declared quickly. Real control over the region is impossible. Both sides will declare victory: the U.S. will claim it “completed the mission,” and Iran will claim it hit back hard. The fuse was already burning — now it will burn hotter.

Once the conflict starts, escalation is no longer fully controllable by the one who initiated it. Here, “de-escalation” is an illusion. The conflict will change shape, but it will remain in the system — and flare up again. Russia, Turkey, and Europe will end up inside this vortex not by choice, but by the inertia of interests and security. This is often how what later gets called World War III begins.

We are at the beginning of major changes on this planet.

Thoughts?

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

Once, the United States helped destroy the largest empire in the world — the British Empire.

Britain remembered that. It will help bring down the United States.

The Economist: Trump Is the Biggest Loser of the War with Iran

Britain’s The Economist lays out, point by point, why Trump is the main loser of his own adventure:

Trump still failed to make the Middle East safer, failed to change the regime in Iran, and failed to eliminate its nuclear program;

The conflict is far from over, Israel continues attacking Lebanon, the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked, and global markets are still on the edge of panic;

The war showed that force is not the same as victory. The power of America and Israel has its limits and becomes ineffective in the absence of a sound strategy.

This is what real transatlantic partnership looks like: London helps Washington climb higher so that, at the right moment, it can trip it and watch its partner break its neck.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

If you look at it from the higher level, the issue is no longer just Iran. The real question is whether a reserve-currency system can preserve trust once geopolitics starts eroding the safe-haven asset itself. In January, mainland China still held $694.4 billion in Treasuries, down 9% from the start of 2025. In March, Japanese investors sold ¥4.12 trillion in foreign bonds, and in February they had already cut their U.S. bond holdings by another ¥3.42 trillion. When trust weakens, capital starts looking for an exit before politics admits there is a problem.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

Europe Opens a Debt Front Against the United States

Political scientist Amitav Acharya introduced the formula

“world-minus-one” in early 2026 in his Foreign Policy article The World-Minus-One Moment.

It is not an EU slogan, but the logic is already in motion: the world is increasingly beginning to calculate its future without the United States as its single center of power.

The Iran crisis only accelerated this process. The American system is no longer being hit only by war, sanctions, and oil. It is being hit by money.

Since the start of the crisis, foreign investors have sold off $80 billion in U.S. government bonds. For a market that for decades was treated as the ultimate safe haven, that is a serious signal.

China started pulling back earlier than most. Its holdings of Treasuries have fallen from $1.3 trillion to roughly $600 billion. This is no longer a routine portfolio adjustment. It is the dismantling of the old model in which even America’s rivals kept financing the U.S. system.

Japan no longer looks like Washington’s unconditional backstop either. It has to deal with its own problems: defending the yen, stabilizing its domestic debt balance, and protecting its financial system. In that situation, American assets stop being sacred reserves and become inventory that can be sold.

The Gulf monarchies are also moving away from their former role as buyers of U.S. debt. Against the backdrop of war, they are less and less willing to support a system that is itself producing instability.

And if part of oil trade shifts into yuan, the blow will hit not only Treasuries, but the very logic of the petrodollar system.

So this is no longer about one weak point. The whole chain is starting to crack: American power, American debt, and the dollar as the world’s uncontested axis. By trying to project strength, Trump is only accelerating the loss of trust in that structure.

Capital, meanwhile, is not disappearing. It is moving toward other shelters. Neutral countries are buying gold. At the same time, demand for eurobonds is rising.

And this is where Europe saw an opening.

As the United States loses its monopoly on trust, Brussels is trying to position European paper as a more predictable alternative. Not because Europe is stronger, but because against the backdrop of American turbulence, it wants to look like the less toxic pole.
The main bet is on Southeast Asia. That is where growth, major markets, and countries that do not want to depend on American crises are concentrated.

That is why Europe is pushing the idea of a broad free-trade space with the countries of the Trans-Pacific partnership area — a bloc spanning 1.5 billion people, Asian economies, Canada, Australia, and part of Latin America.

The logic is simple: secure a place in the new global framework before the United States weakens beyond recovery.

No, this structure will not be built quickly. Europe is fragmented, slow, and still dependent on American security. But the shift itself matters. Not long ago, European elites still operated inside the logic of permanent American leadership.

Now they are preparing for a prolonged U.S. crisis and for life in a post-American world.

So Europe is not just hedging. It is trying to profit from Washington’s weakening. While the United States burns through credibility, undermines trust in its own debt, and drags itself into new conflicts, Brussels wants to sell the world its own version of stability — through bonds, trade links, and new financial routes.

If this process continues, it will no longer be just a dispute among allies. It will become a debt war inside the West — over reserve-asset status, over global capital, and over the right to become the next safe haven in a world where the American system is visibly cracking.

And Europe has clearly decided that this opportunity is too valuable to waste.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

We have arrived exactly at the point described in the March 1 article:

both sides are claiming victory.

Trump started with an ultimatum over Hormuz.

But in the end, Iran is setting the terms for the US:
control over Hormuz,
fees for passage,
lifting sanctions,
continuation of its nuclear program,
and the withdrawal of US forces from the region.

This does not look like victory.

It looks like the limit of pressure.
And the US is unlikely to accept this without trying to reverse the situation.

The conflict is not over.

The demands are incompatible.

So the classic pattern follows:
for now — a pause,
then — another round of war.
To accept this is to lock in the setback now.

To escalate is to pay for it later.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

March 1, 2026

If World War III begins, Taiwan won’t be the trigger. Too many great-power interests collide in a narrow corridor where critical energy flows and global trade routes run. That hub is the Middle East.

Rejoicing at Khamenei’s death is foolish. In the Shiite political and cultural code, a leader’s death is often turned not into “the end,” but into a resource: the image of a martyr, sacral legitimacy, mobilization through mourning, and the logic of revenge in the fight against “infidels.” That doesn’t lower tension — it can raise it.

Whatever the U.S. calls what’s happening, Iran is only the pretext. The goals are pragmatic and clear: oil and Hormuz, pressure on China, reshaping alliances, domestic mobilization in the U.S., control through escalation.

But Iran is not Venezuela. Victory can be declared quickly. Real control over the region is impossible. Both sides will declare victory: the U.S. will claim it “completed the mission,” and Iran will claim it hit back hard. The fuse was already burning — now it will burn hotter.

Once the conflict starts, escalation is no longer fully controllable by the one who initiated it. Here, “de-escalation” is an illusion. The conflict will change shape, but it will remain in the system — and flare up again. Russia, Turkey, and Europe will end up inside this vortex not by choice, but by the inertia of interests and security. This is often how what later gets called World War III begins.

We are at the beginning of major changes on this planet.

Thoughts?

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

@nytimes Ultimatum → pause → negotiations on Iran’s terms.

That’s the sequence.

Call it whatever you want —
but don’t call it control.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

Less than 24 hours remain before the deadline. But the key thing has already happened: Iran has nullified the very logic of the ultimatum.

The US now has no good move left:
either escalate, or lock in weakness.
Against that backdrop, the idea of a “short operation” looks like an attempt to save face.

But the math is against that scenario.
Iran is a country of 90 million people with a territory four times the size of Iraq.

A US force of 17,000–20,000 troops is not enough for control. It is a show of force.

Even in Iraq, with more than 150,000 troops going in, control proved temporary and costly.

Which means that any “quick strike” almost automatically turns into a choice: either widen the war, or leave without a result.

And that is exactly Iran’s bet.
It is shifting the conflict into a mode where the US is forced to raise the cost of involvement, rather than achieve a decisive result.

So the question is no longer whether the war begins.

The question is how quickly it starts to follow its own logic.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

Trump boxed himself in.

— Stop the war → looks weak
— Keep it going → hurts the U.S. from within

Axios: a 45-day truce is being discussed. Odds are low.

The problem:
— A truce = political retreat
— War = rising costs, pressure on the markets, angry voters
The midterms make it worse.

A prolonged conflict could cost Republicans control of Congress.

Iran won’t accept a “pause without guarantees.”

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

@oguzerkan Oil at $150 won’t just cause a recession.
It will expose who’s really overleveraged.
Including BlackRock.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

The AI bubble has inflated to the point where crashes begin.

These are roughly the same levels at which markets collapsed during the Japanese bubble and the dot-com bubble.

The current global situation is made even worse by the cumulative effects of the war since 2022 and rising energy prices since 2026.

Accordingly, the coming economic crisis could be far more destructive than any previous one.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

Trump (manic): the U.S. and Iran could reach a peace deal by Monday.

Trump (depressive): You bastards, open the fucking strait.

That’s what manic-depressive psychosis looks like.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

Operation Epic Loss.

Yesterday, the Iranians shot down an F-15. During the rescue operation to evacuate the pilots, they lost another four helicopters (earlier, only two had been reported) and a C-130 aircraft.

And an A-10 Warthog too, though that may not have been related to the same operation.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

Iran has already cracked Trump’s pattern.

He escalates, then tries to calm the markets with talk of “negotiations.”
Iran answers on cue — exactly when a denial can hit the markets hardest.
Trump: “We’re negotiating.”

Iran: “He’s lying. No one will talk to that jackal.”

Markets drop.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

Is this really a victory?

Iran has conveyed, through intermediaries, its terms for ending the conflict, said Mojtaba Ferdousipour, head of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Cairo:

“Through intermediaries in the region, we are demanding compensation, the lifting of all sanctions, and guarantees that the aggression will not resume.”

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

“My joy! I beg you, acquire a spirit of peace, and then thousands of souls around you will be saved.”

Orthodox Saint Seraphim of Sarov

Its meaning is stern and profound: do not begin with lecturing the world; begin with putting your own soul in order — through peace of soul, repentance, spiritual watchfulness, and life in God.

In the Orthodox understanding, it is inner labor, not outward noise, that becomes a source of real good for others.

English is not my native language, so I may not always fully grasp or precisely convey the nuances I want to express.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

India’s decision to sign a second contract for the purchase of S-400 air defense systems is a consequence of the failure of the American Patriot and THAAD systems during the armed conflict in the Persian Gulf.

A clear-cut Trump victory and another triumph of the grand master plan.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

The paradox of the war against Iran is that it may accelerate not China’s weakening, but its rise.

The West is still too dependent on expensive oil.

China has already been rebuilding its system around electricity, renewables, nuclear power, and strategic reserves.

In crises like this, the winner is not the one who shoots louder, but the one who prepared its economy better.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

Law and order in a country is defined not by the existence of criminals, but by the authorities’ ability to stop them.

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

Is he right?

Speech by Dominic Lee, China's representative, at the UN Human Rights Council:

"When Hong Kong's national security law was enacted in 2020, Western countries condemned us.

They sanctioned us. They call it a violation to human rights. But here's what I want to say. Since enacting this law, Hong Kong's economy has recovered. Tourism has flourished. The people finally feel safe again.

And what's more important is that I really want to ask what moral authority does the United States, a country that's ruled by the abstentions, have over my country, a country that has lifted over 800 million people out of poverty? What moral authority does Britain, a country that arrested over 12,000 of his own people for posting online, have to lecture us about civil liberties?

And what moral authority do NATO countries that preach human rights in this very chamber while turning a blind eye on the scionist genocide in Gaza have to tell us what justice looks like?

We will not be silenced by nations that treat human rights as bargaining chips, a tool of foreign policy.

We will not accept lectures from governments that use human rights as weapons while their own hands are stained with the blood of Palestinians and Iranians they choose to forget. And we will not rest until every nation in this chamber is held to the same standard, until hypocrisy crumbles, genocide is met with action, and peace is no longer a word we speak, but a world we build.

Thank you, Mr. President."

[Grey Viewpoint @GreyViewpoint]

@RapidResponse47 @VP Nothing can save this country anymore.

There are too many contradictions within it.