petehw1

Survived by 3 languages/3 continents. 2003 U.S. Fulbright alumni. It's what you do that defines you, not what you say.

[petehw1 @petehw11]

“We’re broke.”

But we can still rob and ki۱۱.
#Iran #Ukraine

[Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil @ivan_8848]

🚨The structures of the past that were formulated at the end of the First World War are going AWAY.

🚨We're broke.

🚨We're on the edge of a total financial meltdown.

[petehw1 @petehw11]

Sept 16, 2004. On Iraq war.

BBC: It was illegal?
UN’s Kofi Annan: Yes, if you wish.
BBC: It was illegal?
K.A.: Yes, from the UN Charter point of view, it was illegal.

USA still aims at #Iran’s oil to additionally pay for its costly, illegal wars & mountainous debts.
#Ukraine

[House Democrats @HouseDemocrats]

A majority of Americans agree: Trump must end his illegal and costly war with Iran NOW.

[petehw1 @petehw11]

No drones flying at each other soon, like Ukraine and #Russia?

Meanwhile, #Iran’s leader has got to hide himself, for a longer time.

[China Perspective @China_Fact]

Peng Liyuan and Ngo Phuong Ly, wife of Vietnam’s top leader, visit the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, deepening cultural bonds between the two nations

[petehw1 @petehw11]

The 1979 Sino-Vietnam war last a month. It cost #China 10B in today’s dollars. “Teach Vietnam a lesson” was the goal. Both are forever comrades.

WIN or LOSE, US makes sure to teach #Iran a lesson for being disobedient. The war cost, plus collateral, is $1 trillion. More to come.

[Alon Mizrahi @alon_mizrahi]

There is practicslly no way the US retreats without giving it another big, desperate go. With their prestige as a military power on the line and Israel in full command of decision-making narrative-shaping in the land, plus hersing the political and donor classes at will, they simply cannot say no strongly enough, and cannot form an organized resistance (Israel collaborators are everywhere, and every device is accessible to them). They will surrender to Israel and their ego, and this will be the swift and abrupt end of their cannibal empire

[Margarita Simonyan @M_Simonyan]

Laura Loomer: "I would kill Vladimir Putin."

We are blessed that top Russophobes are such a sane and reasonable bunch, and nothing could go wrong from taking their advice on anything.

[petehw1 @petehw11]

Trump wants to demonstrate the white power in West Asia.

But he has been a pet when it comes to North Korea. Only sending the love letter to the nuclear rocket man.
#Iran #Ukraine

[The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter]

BREAKING: Iran says it has prepared a "comprehensive response" to the newly announced US and Israeli strikes for this weekend, warning it would immediately strike critical Israeli energy infrastructure and US energy assets in the region, per Tasnim.

[petehw1 @petehw11]

The more USA damages #Iran, the more Iran damages the GCC.

The more GCC is damaged, the more Isrąel is naked without any protection.

The more US destroys West Asia, the more money #China makes from the reconstruction, and the weaker US will have become.

[Danny (Dennis) Citrinowicz ,داني سيترينوفيتش @citrinowicz]

The frustration with this war is understandable. The United States has inflicted enormous damage on Iran, yet the weaker side in the conflict continues to refuse to surrender or make fundamental concessions. That, however, should not be surprising.

The problem is that expanding the campaign to include civilian and economic infrastructure is unlikely to produce a different strategic outcome. Iran will undoubtedly absorb severe economic damage, but it is equally likely to respond by increasing the costs for its adversaries.

Rather than capitulating, Tehran will seek to impose comparable pain on the Gulf states through attacks on critical infrastructure and by maintaining pressure on the world's two most important maritime chokepoints. The Strait of Hormuz will not simply reopen, nor will the Bab el-Mandeb.

There is no military silver bullet to the Iran challenge. Damaging infrastructure may deepen Iran's economic crisis, but it is difficult to see how that alone will compel the regime to abandon what it considers its core strategic interests. The leadership has consistently demonstrated that it is prepared to absorb extraordinary costs rather than negotiate from a position of perceived weakness.

If anything, Tehran is more likely to escalate in an effort to establish a new deterrence equation. That could include a broader campaign against energy infrastructure across the region, and potentially even attacks on highly sensitive strategic facilities, including nuclear sites.

The bottom line is this: the United States can inflict unprecedented damage on Iran, but it should not assume that unprecedented damage will translate into Iranian capitulation. Managing expectations about what military force alone can achieve is just as important as managing the conflict itself.

#iran

[petehw1 @petehw11]

As a reminder, destrøying and bømbing civilian targets have been USA’s official policy at least since WWI.
#Iran #Ukraine

[The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter]

BREAKING: The US is planning to cut off all electricity across Tehran, including for all civilians, per senior US officials to CBS News.

[petehw1 @petehw11]

USA and Isrąel are interchangeably heart and soul of a vulture.

Both have enjoyed and shared the same fate, for better or worse. 75 past years have shown that trend. 😳
#Iran #Ukraine

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

Sometimes I wonder if the U.S. is Israel's proxy, or Israel is America's proxy

or is it both?

[petehw1 @petehw11]

Isrąel continues sucking the West softened … 😅
#Iran #Ukraine

[petehw1 @petehw11]

Without China’s unbreakable logistical support, #Iran and #Russia may not have such a level of confidence in the wars of attrition against the West.

[Patricia Marins @pati_marins64]

Trump Fatigued: Iran Takes the Initiative in the Conflict Using Allies

Anyone observing the war in the Middle East and hearing that Iran is still standing often asks how a country that has been bombed for months can possibly remain so resilient.

What many people, including myself, had already been saying has now been told directly to President Trump. After successive waves of air attacks, the U.S. military leadership informed Trump that the campaign has lost its effectiveness.

The top military chief, General Dan Caine, warned that there are no longer relevant pinpoint targets and that the region’s air defenses risk exhaustion.

On March 18, I wrote:

“They possess the technology, the strategic advantage of their geography, and are proving to be remarkably resilient. Their command and control chain is decentralized, with a backup plan for every leader, including a scale of three to seven pre-designated successors. The U.S. is fighting a war unlike any it has ever faced.”

Today, I would add that Iran realized the truce was a situation in which it could exercise no pressure at all. Consequently, it strategically mobilized and activated its regional allies to degrade the Saudi position, effectively opening a new front aimed at forcing the closure of the Bab El-Mandeb strait. 

It decided to seize the initiative by cutting off the Oman route and expanding the operations of both the Houthis and the Iraqi PMF, just as it did with Hezbollah during the war, opening a new front against Israel. 

There are already daily bombings and missile exchanges between Saudis and Yemenis, and none of this occurs without Iran’s hand. The trend is that the situation can escalate to the point of compromising Saudi oil production and triggering a larger conflict.

Iran has moved from a purely reactive posture throughout the conflict and the truce to actively assuming the initiative at this stage of the war.

Facing Trump’s lack of options, this reveals a White House exhaustion that will be difficult to cure.

Indeed, the United States is already feeling a strong and early war fatigue, driven by the contrast between Donald Trump’s promises and the harsh economic and military reality of the conflict.

The war against Iran has completed five months and quickly turned into a strategic quagmire that exhausts the patience of the American population and institutions, feeding a general sense of frustration.

After all, Trump promised to play the role of peacemaker in his second term, yet the American voter finds himself trapped in a dynamic of mutual retaliation in the Middle East with no clear horizon for victory or an exit, all while public coffers are being drained.

This American frustration, reflected in recent opinion polls, is motivating Iran to take the initiative and move to block Saudi exports, a very bold measure when one considers that the country is at war with the planet’s greatest military power.

All of this is unfolding as the midterm elections approach. Whatever decision Trump makes, it will look like a defeat.

Continue reading:
https://t.co/Fxg8AUB8xN

[petehw1 @petehw11]

“It's becoming a contest over the entire trade network linking #Iran, #Russia, China and India.

Hormuz is only one front.”

I said from day one, the war continues …

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇮🇷🇺🇸 The Iran war isn't nearing an end. It's becoming a permanent, deliberately managed conflict.

Most people see two possible outcomes: Either Trump escalates, or he makes a deal with Iran.

Geopolitical analyst Patrick Henningsen thinks that's a false choice; he believes Washington is preparing to do both.

Fight, pause, negotiate, rearm, and fight again.

According to Patrick, the periods of diplomacy are not necessarily designed to produce peace; they're created to buy time.

He argues the Pentagon's long-term objective hasn't changed.

Continue degrading Iran's military infrastructure, try to weaken Tehran's ability to control the Strait of Hormuz, and keep applying pressure until its strategic position steadily erodes.

Whether that takes months or years.

That's why he doesn't expect a sudden breakthrough where Washington simply accepts Iran's demands and walks away.

He thinks we're entering a cycle, because this war is no longer just about Iran.

It's becoming a contest over the entire trade network linking Iran, Russia, China and India.

Hormuz is only one front.

The Caspian Sea, the north-south trade corridor, China's Belt and Road Initiative, strategic ports. and critical pipelines are all on the board.

In Patrick's view, Washington isn't simply trying to pressure Tehran; it's trying to prevent an alternative Eurasian economic system from emerging outside U.S influence.

That also explains why the battlefield keeps expanding.

@21WIRE

[petehw1 @petehw11]

The West needs those fearless and reckless to act as its attack dog.

But a mad dog can also deadly bite its feeding hands. 😅
#Iran #Ukraine

[HatsOff @HatsOffff]

Laura Loomer: "If I was president of the United States and Russia was supplying Iran with weapons, I would kill Vladimir Putin... I'm not saying Donald Trump should kill Vladimir Putin."

[Pew Research Center @pewresearch]

China being assessed more positively than the U.S. is a relatively recent shift in most countries surveyed.

These favorability reversals usually come down to two forces moving in opposite directions: China's reputation rising, America's falling.

[Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil @ivan_8848]

🚨Prof. Mohammad Marandi Completly DESTROYS Alan Dershowitz.

🚨“YOU’RE The Evil Monster!”

🚨"You are the Nazi regime that is carrying out a holocaust in Gaza.

You're afraid because you know you have no
argument.

You are a coward.

You won't let me talk.

Epstein's lawyer, Trump's lawyer, is afraid of me.

I let you talk because I'm not afraid of you.

People are not afraid of you anymore.

You can kill Epstein.

You can kill whoever you like, but we're not afraid.

You can bomb my house.
You can kill me with my family, but I'm not afraid of you.

I'm prepared to die for the Palestinian people. But you, you who used to frequent Epstein Island, you have no principles and no morality."

Mohammad Marandi vs Alan Dershowitz on Iran

[petehw1 @petehw11]

#Ukraine #Iran

[Diana Panchenko 🇺🇦 @Panchenko_X]

Protests in Ukraine!

Crowds block the city center chanting: “Zelensky, come out to the people!”

In 2014 these exact slogans started the revolution that toppled the government.

Is this the beginning?..

[petehw1 @petehw11]

March 29, 2022 - The Judgement Day! #Ukraine would not have lost 12 million people leaving the country, and 1 million dead.

March 30, 2022: UK’s Boris Johnson spoiled the Ukraine-#Russia deal, with his puppet Zelensky.

[Iuliia Mendel @IuliiaMendel]

Zelenskyy’s lies are incredibly cynical. To diminish Ukraine’s losses, justify prolonging the war, and downplay human suffering, human rights violations, and the country’s overall degradation, he systematically understates the death toll. Today he claimed Ukraine has lost around 50,000 military personnel. That figure is surreal and simply unbelievable.

@HavryshkoMarta has said that two of her cousins’ husbands are gone—one confirmed dead, the other missing. I personally know someone who was the sole survivor of a battle near Bakhmut. Family accounts and what soldiers themselves report make the claim of only 50,000 dead impossible to accept. Remember the ten months of hellish fighting for Bakhmut alone? How many were lost there? What about Avdiivka and Pokrovsk—the blood-soaked fortresses of Donbas?

Consider the more than 90,000 people officially listed as missing in Ukraine—military personnel, civilians, and children. Consider the 100,000 who now need prosthetic limbs because of the war.

I can accept his figure of 400,000 wounded soldiers, even if it too looks minimized when set against the 50,000 civilians wounded over more than four years. But I cannot believe the claim of only 50,000 dead soldiers. It is too cynical and inhumane—an attempt to conceal the true scale of the losses and to reveal Zelenskyy’s real intention: to keep this horrible war going.

[petehw1 @petehw11]

“Nothing stops the train.”

— @LynAldenContact
#Iran #Ukraine

[Bull Theory @BullTheoryio]

🚨 BREAKING: US national debt has officially surpassed $40 TRILLION for the first time in history.

[Clarence Thomas the Tank Engine @TheRealJChubby]

Weird I thought it was the genocide.

[petehw1 @petehw11]

#Iran #Ukraine

[Kathleen Tyson @Kathleen_Tyson_]

The stupidity and desperation revealed by even proposing a land blockade on Iran has me optimistic all Iran needs to do to win is survive with Hormuz under permanent control.

The Gulf states will have no choice but realignment, as evidenced by the Qatari gas tanker using the Iran route this morning (then intercepted by US Navy). Pakistan is desperate for that gas shipment the US Navy is now holding back.

Iran has closed Strait of Hormuz again to all transits. Asia will be fuel scarce soon.

[petehw1 @petehw11]

"You should write a major book that tries to explain how it is that people in the West think so foolishly from a strategic viewpoint. This is truly puzzling. What are these people in the West thinking?

You can apply the same logic to #Iran. I just don't understand it at all." 😅

[Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen]

John Mearsheimer: Ukraine Is Landlocked & Donbas Enters Endgame
https://t.co/rPIOyseDy3

[petehw1 @petehw11]

Two words: Hubris. Desperation.

#Iran #Ukraine

[Policy Tensor @policytensor]

What is the most efficient explanation for the epistemic crisis of the West? When and how did it become impossible to recognize basic empirical and mathematical facts? for a civilization that rose precisely on its stronger leash to rational thought, evidence-based argument, and the linear perspective?

How can it be that not a single Western defense expert is willing to recognize the obvious fact that deterrence is now mathematically impossible in Asia? that disarming Iran is not possible? that Ukraine is dying?

We literally have @ForeignAffairs publishing @ProfessorPape saying Iran proves Taiwan can blockade China! Are you fucking kidding me?

More seriously, what has gone wrong with the production of public truth claims in the US and the West in general? This is a recipe for nothing short of civilizational collapse.