“what’s causing high rents is government intervention” is insane propoganda that too many people who are suffering at the hands of inflationary pressure will believe
Jeff Bezos on CNBC: "If people want me to pay more billions, then let's have that debate, but don't pretend that that's gonna solve the problem. You could double the taxes I pay, and it's not gonna help that teacher in Queens.... Airbnb isn't causing high rents. What's really causing high rent is government intervention."
🚨 Netanyahu: “This is confidential… and can’t be leaked.”
Too late, Bibi.
Tucker Carlson just dropped the leaked interrogation tapes exposing how Netanyahu allegedly funneled $35 million a month from Qatar to Hamas using American tax dollars as a divide-and-rule strategy to weaken the Palestinian Authority and block any peace deal.
🔸 NEW: Spokesperson of the Central Headquarters of Hazrat Khatam al-Anbiya:
➤ “Following previous warnings, if Iran’s fuel and energy infrastructure is attacked by the enemy, all energy, information technology, and desalination infrastructure belonging to the United States and the regime in the region will be targeted.”
Many have rationalized this war with reference to the Iranian people’s right to democratic freedom.
I wonder if any of them genuinely believe that this is what a majority of Iranians would have chosen for themselves, had they been allowed to decide
We need to be clear that WW3 has effectively started. By way of analogy, the Trump regimes assault on Iran in many respects mirrors the fascist onslaught against the Second Spanish Republic that started in 1936. It's not an approximate analogy, as the political formations are profoundly different. The Islamic Republic is far and away a different political entity than the popular front Republic. That being said, Iran, because of its natural resources, military capacities, and relative sovereignty within the US dominated capitalist world-system, is/was a lynchpin for the possibility of a transition away from the US centered world order. In order to maintain it's hegemonic grip on the capitalist world-system, the US empire has little choice but to intervene on a military level, as it's already lost the production war and was losing its grip on the international financial mechanisms that prop up the system and grease its wheels. The US has to control the worlds oil supplies in order to try and bring China to heal, and make it serve its interests. But, this is not tenable and can't be sustained without a massive overreach. Which a new global south alliance and international could topple, but not without a tremendous amount of pain and suffering. So, here we are. Get prepared for perhaps a decade of chaos, which we hope the worlds metabolic systems that sustain human life can survive. The balance is in question to be sure.
Some observations and comments on Trump and Israel's war on Iran:
1. Tehran is not looking for a ceasefire and has rejected outreach from Trump. The reason is that they believe they committed a mistake by agreeing to the ceasefire in June - it only enabled the US and Israel to restock and remobilize to launch war again. If they agree to a ceasefire now, they will only be attacked again in a few months.
2. For a ceasefire to be acceptable, it appears difficult for Tehran to agree to it until the cost to the US has become much higher than it currently is. Otherwise, the US will restart the war at a later point, the calculation reads.
3. Accordingly, Iran has shifted its strategy. It is striking Israel, but very differently from the June war. There is a constant level of attack throughout the day rather than a salvo of 50 missiles at once. Damage will be less, but that isn't a problem because Tehran has concluded that Israel's pain tolerance is very high - as long as the US stays in the war. So the focus shifts to the US.
4. From the outset, and perhaps surprisingly, Iran has been targeting US bases in the region, including against friendly states. Tehran calculates that the war can only end durably if the cost for the US rises dramatically, including American casualties. After the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran says it has no red lines left and will go all out in seeking the destruction of these bases and high American casualties.
5. Iran understands that many in the American security establishment had been convinced that Iran's past restraint reflected weakness and an inability or unwillingness to face the US in a direct war. Tehran is now doing everything it can to demonstrate the opposite - despite the massive cost it itself will pay. Ironically, the assassination of Khamenei facilitated this shift.
6. One aspect of this is that Iran has now also struck bases in Cyprus, which have been used for attacks against Iran. Iran is well aware that this is an attack on a EU state. But that seems to be the point. Tehran appears intent on not only expanding the war into Persian Gulf states but also into Europe. Note the attack on the French base in the UAE. For the war to be able to end, Europe too has to pay a cost, the reasoning appears to be.
7. There appears to be only limited concern about the internal situation. The announcement of Khamenei's death opened a window for people to pour onto the streets and seek to overthrow the regime. Though expressions of joy were widespread, no real mobilization was seen. That window is now closing, as the theocratic system closes ranks and establishes new formal leadership.
Again: The question "How will this end?" should have been asked before this war was triggered. It wasn't.
@PulaRJS@markcurtis30 40 (imaginary) dead babies filled every headline in the West on 8 October 2023, but 127 (real - alive yesterday) dead schoolgirls won’t rate even one Western headline today.
Yes, I remember all the triumphalism over the capture / deaths of Saddam Hussein, Colonel Gaddafi, bin Laden, Mullah Omar.
And the Iraqi people, the Libyan people, and the Afghan people all lived happily ever after.
The Pentagon’s own wargames show China can sink the USS Gerald R. Ford. And China just handed Iran the tools to prove it.
The leaked 2025 Overmatch Brief, the most classified US naval simulation conducted last year, concluded that in a Taiwan conflict, Chinese hypersonic anti-ship missiles overwhelm carrier strike group defenses and send the Ford to the bottom. The $13.3 billion crown jewel of American naval power, destroyed in a simulation by the same country that is now selling CM-302 supersonic anti-ship missiles to Iran and delivering electronic warfare systems capable of jamming F-35s operating from carrier decks.
The Ford departed Souda Bay, Greece yesterday. She is heading directly toward the theater where those weapons are being transferred.
China is running the most elegant strategic operation of the 21st century and doing it in plain sight. Step one: prove in your own wargames that you can kill the carrier. Step two: sell the missile technology to the country the carrier is being sent against. Step three: deliver electronic warfare packages that degrade the carrier’s air wing. Step four: photograph every asset in the strike architecture and publish it so the target knows exactly what is coming and from where. Step five: sit back and watch whether America sails its most valuable warship into the kill zone anyway.
If the Ford survives, China learns how American carrier defenses actually perform against the weapon systems China designed. If the Ford is hit, China has achieved the single most consequential military intelligence victory since Enigma: real-world combat data on how to sink an American supercarrier without firing a shot themselves.
Iran is not the opponent. Iran is the laboratory.
MizarVision has photographed the F-22s at Ovda, the empty berths at Bahrain, the tankers at Diego Garcia, and now the Ford’s departure from Greece. Beijing has constructed a real-time intelligence mosaic of the entire American order of battle and distributed it freely. Every satellite pass is a page in the targeting manual China is writing through Iranian hands.
Pentagon insiders told Politico they have 7 to 10 days of munitions. Trump decides tomorrow at 3 PM. Task Force Scorpion’s kamikaze drones stand ready to extend the campaign with $35,000 Shahed clones when the Tomahawks run dry. Geneva produced “progress” without agreement. The demands remain unbridgeable. And the Ford sails toward missiles that were designed in Chinese laboratories, tested in Chinese simulations, and sold to the country America says it will strike by March.
China did not pick a side. China built the chessboard, armed both players, and positioned itself to learn from whoever loses.
The Ford is not sailing toward Iran. The Ford is sailing into a Chinese experiment. And the results will determine who controls the Pacific for the next fifty years.
The Omanis are famously cautious. The Omani FM going on CBS to reveal what has actually been achieved in the negotiations is quite unprecedented. And what has been achieved is significant - Trump can indeed declare victory. Listen to this segment - it goes way beyond what Obama achieved.
But everything indicates that Trump won't take yes for an answer. That he will start a war of choice very soon.
Which is probably why the Omani FM decided to go public.
So that the American people knew that peace was within reach when Trump instead opted for war.
the admin took the Ford GSC from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean just in November, now they plan on sending it to the Indian Ocean to threaten another sovereign nation.
I feel sorry for the sailors who must take the burden of this order and the Americans who pay for it.