Are Ayatollahs Allowed to Lie through their Teeth?

I have been reading Trump saying the US will start with a small attack on Iran, just to show the Iranians what the US can do, and then give them a chance to capitulate: total disarmament of Iran, removal of the Ayatollahs to some monastery (or whatever the Muslims call it) where they can pray in isolation, and return of Iran to the Shah and all Iran's oil to BP, and if they do not capitulate, then total destruction of Iran.

I have read several analysts guessing when the small strike will be, and how much damage it will do to Iran, and if the US will really stop after a small strike and let the Iranians surrender, or will just continue with the total destruction of Iran, losing no US military forces or equipment while they totally destroy Iran.

This, however, does not conform to what the Ayatollahs have been saying: if one bomb lands on Iran from the US or Israel, Iran will respond with a full, 'regional' response, meaning, Iran will destroy all US military forces in the region, plus all oil assets, plus all of Israel. Are the Ayatollahs lying? Will they accept a small strike and not retaliate, hoping that will prevent a larger strike? Will they withhold their fire, even as the US destroy Iran, fearing the US might do much worse if Iran dare to shoot back? My guess is that the Ayatollahs are telling the truth about what they will do, even if the US and Israel are sure they are lying, that they cannot retaliate, that Israel told the truth, every Iranian missile except one was intercepted by the Iron Dome, and that one missile killed 24 Israelis who did not go to a bomb shelter, a clear case of genocide by the genocidal Iranians, a crime that must be punished, and punished severely.

Obviously, Iran lacks (maybe) missiles that can hit the US mainland, we only know they have hypersonic missiles that can go 1,400 km (870 miles), far enough to reach Israel and just about all the US military assets now gathered around Iran, ready for an attack like the one on Iraq in 2003. Only Iraq didn't have any hypersonic missiles, while Iran have many.

We also know that the US have nothing that can stop a hypersonic missile, unless they can destroy them on the ground before launch.

The US military now say they can do just that, US stealth airplanes cannot be detected by Iran, and US intelligence have located every single Iranian missile, so all the missiles can be totally destroyed in about 5 minutes, leaving Iran with no offensive weapons, and no defensive weapons that could hinder the US destruction of Iran.

As Scott Ritter says, the US cannot destroy all the Iranian missiles, but they can destroy almost all of them, leaving just a few of what the military call 'leakers', but these few leakers cannot possibly overwhelm the US or Israeli air defence systems, so all will be destroyed before they can do any damage to US military assets or Israel.

So Scott is saying that, while it is not true that the US air and ship-launched missile attacks can take out every Iranian missile, they can leave Iran unable to strike any US or Israeli targets with the few missiles not destroyed before they can be launched.

Again, all this leaves out what the Ayatollah has been saying: one bomb, just one, and an all-out retaliation will take place, and if the US cannot destroy all those hypersonic missiles, a lot of US matériel and Israeli buildings will be destroyed and a lot of US military forces and Israelis will be killed. It also leaves out the PRC and Russian defence systems that have been installed in Iran (and which Russia and the PRC figure should have been installed before 13 Feb 2025), systems that make stealth US airplanes as visible as a cow in a close-cropped field in broad daylight (even when those US planes attack at midnight).

So the US military saying they know they can overwhelm Iran is either a) a bluff, an attempt to convince the Iranians to surrender, since Iran can't possibly know it's a bluff  (actually, Iran will react as if it is a bluff); or b) utter stupidity, which will work just like utter stupidity always works.

The question remains: when will the US actually try any utter stupidity????

Attacks have been scheduled for 14 January, 1 February, and 6 February, but all were 'postponed'.

Trump said on 19 February that Iran had just 10 days to surrender, later extended to 15 days, so will the actual attack by the US on Iran be on Monday, 2 Mar? Friday, 6 Mar? Tue, 3 Mar to catch the Iranians off guard, since they'd never expect an attack on 3 Mar?

Basically, I'm sure Scott Ritter based his assessment on what he was told by his friends still active in the US military, but they don't seem to know much, or couldn't tell him anything except the official lie that the US is still, by far, the strongest military power in the world.

I keep repeating: the US ordered sanctions, actually a naval blockade, on Iran from 1980 until 2021. I read many newspaper accounts of oil tankers that tried to buy Iranian oil, only to be stopped by the US Naval Blockade, taken to a friendly port, and sold, along with the oil, with all the money going to the US Treasury, so not one ¢ of the oil's value went to Iran, and the owners of the tankers lost their tankers and their oil.

Then, in 2021, a fleet of oil tankers showed up in Iran and bought every drop of oil Iran had to sell, and when the US Navy showed up to stop them, found the tanker fleet protected by a more powerful navy than the US blockade, so the blockade withdrew, and Iran have been selling about 2 million barrels of oil a day, every day, ever since.

So the US military ain't what they used to be many long years ago.

One final point: the New York Times, always reliable, i.e., always reliably demonising Trump, say they heard from the top US general that the general told Trump not to order an attack on Iran, and then, after that, Trump said that the general gave him the green light to order an attack.

Which might actually be partly true: the general might know that an attack on Iran is not possible, never said it openly, but quietly mentioned it to a New York Times reporter. And Trump might be threatening a small attack in hopes that Iran will accede to at least some small part of Trump's demands (not clear what, if anything, the Iranians might agree to at this point, backed by the evil Russians and PRC who are providing the Iranians with defences the US cannot handle).

But whoever is really running the US (and also Trump) might be hoping they can somehow convince Iran to make some small concessions (possible, if those concessions are small enough, or maybe Iran conceding that they will never do something that they never had any intention of doing), and the US can then describe those minor concessions as a total victory over Iran (which is about the best the US can do), and if the US go the utter stupidity route, it will be most unfortunate for US military personnel stationed anywhere in West Asia or off the coast of West Asia, Israel, and the Arab Gulf states.

Trump, fortunately, uses bluffing, so we can hope all his talk about destroying Iran is just a bluff, hoping the Iranians will fear US power and make at least token concessions, but I fear even token concessions are unlikely.

When will the 2026 Iran War Start?????

Bessent said he deliberately crashed the Iranian currency to destroy the Iranian economy in late December 2025. In anticipation of protests over the crashed (by the US) Iranian currency, Mossad, the CIA, and MI6 sent in 40,000 foot soldiers with Starlink terminals, and they were directed (from Mossad in Israel, CIA in the US, and MI6 in the UK) to piles of weapons and where to gather with other foot soldiers to kill security officers and protesters not aligned with the pro-Shah forces.

About 3,000 were killed, mostly Iranian security forces and civilians, plus several hundred of the good, (US-, UK-) law-abiding protestors.

Of course, the US/UK/EU mainstream media note that that figure of 3,000 is Iranian propaganda, and scream that more than 30,000, maybe more than 40,000, maybe more than 70,000 peaceful protestors have been brutally murdered by the evil Ayatollahs.

It seems the brilliant Mossad/CIA/MI6 plan ran into a little snag: the evil PRC and Russia gave Iran systems that could disable Starlink, track down the locations of all the Starlink terminals, and then arrest the foot-soldier agents sent to start the overthrow of the Ayatollahs and return of the Shah (who is the son of the former Shah).

But the violent rioters sent by Mossad, the CIA, and MI6 all having been arrested, the Ayatollah was still firmly in control, so the planned 14 Jan 2026 US attack had to be postponed, as was the 6 Feb attack and the 15 Feb attack.

On 19 Feb, Trump said he was giving Iran just 10 days to comply with all US demands: no uranium in Iran, complete de-militarisation, no resistance to return of the Shah and return of all Iranian oil to the rightful owner: BP.  

Ten days would mean 1 March 2026, but Trump later extended the deadline to 15 days, or 6 March 2026.

At this point, the top decision makers in the CIA/MI6/Mossad seem to be unsure how to proceed: the evil Russians and PRC militaries have been helping Iran prepare their defences, and the size and effectiveness of those defences may or may not be fully understood.

Plan A says that the US have detailed knowledge of the locations of all Iranian weapons, and the US stealth-planes can easily evade all Iranian radar detection, so the hundreds of planes and missiles fired from ships and US military bases will destroy all the Iranian weapons, kill all the senior government officials, military officers, and Ayatollahs, and leave Iran ripe for the picking, with the Ayatollahs replaced by the Shah just as easily as Maduro was replaced by President Trump (who now calls himself the effective president of Venezuela).

But there are sceptics who think the evil Russians and PRC might have defensive weapons that can conceal the whereabouts of the Iranian offensive weapons, and then just might, a remote possibility but still a possibility, sink one or more of the ships in the Armada(s), shoot down one or more of those US stealth planes, and might have a few well-hidden missiles that could do serious damage to Israel, US military bases, Arabian Gulf oil fields, and close the Strait of Hormuz with Russian and PRC mines.

One strange thing is that, on Friday, February 13th, Scott Ritter said that Trump would not dare order an attack on Iran, since the chance of unacceptable US losses was too high, but on Monday, February 16th, he said that a US attack on Iran was imminent, possibly before the end of the week. He repeated that again this Monday, February 23, that the attack is almost (but not quite) certain, and very soon, maybe early in the morning one day this week or next.

Scott says that, if ordered to attack, the US know the location of every Iranian missile, and can take most of them out. There will be a few missiles that will get missed, missiles that the military call 'leakers', but this is why the US have put in lots of additional anti-missile defence systems to protect US assets and Israel from those 'leakers'.

Ideally, Scott says, there will be no US or Israeli casualties, with US air defences and Israel's Iron Dome easily able to protect US military forces and all Israelis from the Iranian 'leakers'.

But Scott says that success for the US attack, while very likely, is not absolutely certain, and there might be some US and Israeli casualties.

Scott is hoping that the top generals will warn Trump that, while success is almost certain, there is still a chance that US and Israeli lives could be lost if the US attack Iran, and Scott thinks that Trump is a coward, and hopes that Trump will be so cowardly that he will refrain from ordering an attack.

Scott, like a lot of people, detests Trump more than he has ever disliked any other president. I, however, saw Trump go on TV and say, 

'I order all US troops out of Syria!.' Twice! 

Then the men in dark suits and dark glasses asked Trump if he wanted to be the next JFK, since the US hadn't had a good president's funeral in more than 50 years, and Trump asked, 'What do I have to do?' and the next day, Trump ordered US troops into Syria. 

Proving Trump, like Biden and Obama and Bush, Jr. are all just actors playing the part of the US president, reading the lines the real president gives them to read off the Teleprompter.

But I don't know if the person really in charge will order an attack that might fail, or will just hope that the Iranians are foolish enough to surrender, and if they aren't, won't risk an attack that could do serious damage to the US military.

We've also been 'promised' an attack at least four times now, but no attack, and there is a high cost to having an Armada sitting and doing nothing, so we need that promised attack to finally come about very soon now, or the fleet will need to sail home.

Nuclear Physics and Iran

Walt Kelly called it "New Clear PhyFizzics", then noted it was not so new, not so clear, and, when the book was dropped in a bucket of water, 'nary a fizz.'

In 1945, the US announced that they had the world's greatest weapon: U₂₃₅! Of course, everything was Top Secret, so no details, but everyone knew that no other nation could possibly produce such a weapon, only the US, so when the USSR produced one after four years, the US executed the two Jewish spies who gave away the secret. The way the spies were discovered was that the Great J. Edgar Hoover picked up some people and said, 'You will be charged with espionage. If you do not confess, you will be executed. If you confess and name your accomplices, you'll get your sentence reduced to just a few years in Federal Prison. Now name your accomplices!' And the people arrested kept naming accomplices and naming accomplices until a Jewish couple, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, said they had not been spies, they had not stolen nuclear secrets and sold them to the Soviets, and they had had no accomplices, so they were both executed (the others arrested got prison sentences of a few years, then they were released as disgraced spies who had helped the Rosenbergs give the USSR the secret to the nuclear bomb; J. Edgar Hoover said he kept waiting for a phone call on the night of execution saying the Rosenbergs were ready to confess and name their accomplices, and he would have immediately ordered their sentence commuted).

I saw a Disney comic book back in the late '50s, showing Professor Ludwig Von Drake teaching about U₂₃₅: the most powerful explosive in the world. He threw a speck into the Grand Canyon. Nothing happened, so they asked, 'What's happening?' and Ludwig said, 'It hasn't hit bottom yet.'

When the U₂₃₅ finally hit bottom, the explosion filled the entire Grand Canyon. Nothing about radiation poisoning, though, since this was a children's comic book explanation about the atomic bomb and U₂₃₅, no details like radiation poisoning allowed.

In fact, the story started that all the bombs were U₂₃₅, then that one bomb was actually plutonium, not uranium, then two bombs were plutonium, and now most figure all three of the US bombs, the one tested at White Sands New Mexico, and the two dropped on Japan, were all plutonium bombs.

The grimy details finally came out about the secret facility in Chicago (the Chicago Pile) where about 50 tonnes of metallic uranium and yellowcake were allowed to sit until a fission reaction started, then it was stopped and the Pile was moved to a more secure location. After three years of fission, the pile produced enough plutonium to make three bombs. Of course, the fact that the bombs were Plutonium was tippity-top secret, classified TS/SCI/NOFORN/BBR!!! The US wanted everyone to try to make a bomb out of U₂₃₅.

Everyone knew the US was buying uranium, millions of dollars worth, but the war left most nations without millions to spend on uranium when no one thought it would work until they saw the US do it, after which, every country that has 50 tonnes of metallic uranium and wants a bomb has a bomb. The countries without bombs either don't want them, so they sell their uranium oar, or they don't have enough uranium to build a bomb.

So the Soviets didn't need any spies, nor did the French, Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, or North Koreans (the British and Israelis didn't need any spies because they got by with a little help from their friends).

But Israel and the US want rid of Iran, and saying they are building a nuclear bomb and are only a few days away from completing one (and have been just a few days away for more than 30 years) is more than enough justification to totally destroy the country (and then return all the oil that the Iranians have been stealing since 1980 back to the rightful owners, BP).

The only teeny problem that intrudes into this brilliant and facile plan by the US and Israel is that the evil Russians and Chinese might have been helping Iran with their defences (all deny that, since if Iran lose, Russia and the PRC don't want any of the blame, and if Iran win, they want the US to know they lost to a small country with only the most primitive defences, spears and arrows and such like against the most advanced weapons in the entire world that only the US Defence Industry can produce: one can hardly believe the $trillions needed for all the advanced development by ChatGPT required to produce those US weapons).

Latest Guess about When the War on Iran Will Take Place

The 2026 State of the Union Address will take place on Tuesday, 24 February.

I heard some experts say that any War on Iran will tend to overshadow and distract people from paying much attention to the State of the Union, something Trump would never allow, so the War must be postponed until at least 25 February, and then take place either that day or very shortly thereafter. 

Trump announced on the afternoon of 19 February that, if Iran do not surrender and agree to all the US terms within 10 days, the war will start. It is not altogether clear what all those terms are: One or more of:

1) the JCPOA that Obama negotiated, got UN Security Council Approval, and so was 'legally binding on the US', then Trump said he was cancelling the JCPOA? 

2)  no nuclear material of any kind in Iran?

3) no missiles in Iran?

 4) total disarmament, Iran must be totally demilitarised?

5) new leadership, the Ayatollahs all have to leave, the Shah has to return as total ruler of Iran, and must stick to his agreement to return all the oil in Iran oil to the legal owners (under US/UK/EU law): BP? 

 6)????

One must recall that, the last time Trump said time was running out, that Iran must meet negotiators on Sunday, 15 June or the war would start, that the war started in the early hours of Friday, 13 June, with help from many Mossad, CIA, and MI6 agents and from the IAEA, so Israel knew where every general and senior atomic scientist was living and droned all their homes, killing every single Iranian general and senior atomic scientist, and tried to kill both the Ayatollah and the president of Iran but only wounded the Iranian President, and the Ayatollah was not staying in the residence where the spies said he would be, so he escaped unharmed.

So Trump might expect a great victory, as Great and as Quick as Venezuela, a victory he will be able to brag about during the Address, so the war might start and end with a total and complete US victory before the address, catching the Iranians totally by surprise?

Last I heard, most of the experts are predicting that the war will start shortly after the address and take at least a few weeks, and some predict a year or more.

So will Trump wait 10 days, and start the war on 29 June, or sooner or later or ???? 

There are, of course, the second and third Carrier Battle Groups, AKA the second and third Armadas, which have not yet reached a position where they can participate in any initial massive strike on Iran, a strike which is supposed to be so massive that it will take out all the top government officials and most Iranian military assets, leaving Iran unable to make much of a return strike, nothing that can penetrate Israel's Iron Dome, which has been further protected by many Patriot batteries set up in the last few weeks. And if the US are waiting for all the Armadas to arrive, the war will have to be postponed until they arrive, which will be a week or more after the State of the Union Address, and not clear exactly when that will be.

Again, Trump said Iran must meet all US terms (which are not precisely articulated) before 29 June, but, based on what we've seen Israel and the US military do before, the attack might be sooner or later than that. 

*** 

After the first US and/or US-Israeli strike are launched from the one, two, or three Armadas, Iran are supposed to have nothing left that can penetrate the Israeli defences or the defences the US have set up to protect US military assets in West Asia, nothing that can do any damage to the Arabian Gulf oil fields, nothing that can mine the Strait of Hormuz and limit the easy travel of Arabian oil to world markets. And with the Ayatollahs all gone, the Shah can be put back in, all Iranian oil, stolen by the Ayatollahs in 1980, will be returned to the lawful owner (under US/UK/EU law), BP!

And after this victory, the US will be free to concentrate on liberating the Soviet Union from the Communist dictators, and then breaking up the former USSR into many, small, demilitarised countries, with all Soviet oil, gold, and other valuable minerals returned to the rightful owners, Western (mostly American) oiligarchs, as War Reparations. 

***

Of course, some of the pro-Iranian propaganda channels say the evil PRC and Russia have given some weapons to the Iranians that can stop any US or US/Israeli attack. Iran say, 'That is not true. No one has given us any weapons, we bought them all with our own money.'

In any case, it is not at all clear what kinds of weapons Iran have, except that none are nuclear. They might have hypersonic missiles that can penetrate the defences of the Armada(s) and Israel. They might have stealth submarines that can take out some or all of the ships in the Armada(s). 

I keep wondering about a) calling it 'three Armadas,' since the term 'Armada' covers all the US naval assets, not just part of them; and b) using the word 'Armada' after what happened to the most famous Armada in (British) history.

The Armada(s) are sure that they are out of range of all Iranian missiles, but it is not clear if that intelligence is correct. 

The Iranians also have some stealth submarines, but the US a) may not know that a backward nation like Iran could possibly have any submarines, and b) if they do, they are probably like the US Civil War Southern Rebel submarines that were easily destroyed by the Union Navy, so the US Navy are sure they can detect and destroy any Iranian submarine that approaches the Armada(s).

There are quite a few commentators on the pro-Iranian propaganda channels who figure the US Armada(s) will do about as well as that last Armada sent to conquer Britain, the Iranian hypersonic missiles and stealth submarines will be able to sink much of the Armada(s), and those hypersonic missiles will then do massive damage to Israel, US military bases, and the Arabian Gulf oil fields. Iran will also mine the Strait of Hormuz, possible with PRC mines set to never go off if approached by a PRC tanker, so the Strait of Hormuz will be closed to all ships except those from the PRC.

***

Net: a lot of people claim to have excellent intelligence about what is about to happen, but we'll have to wait before we can be sure.

What does seem likely is that, if the US and/or Israel attack Iran, and that initial strike fails to decapitate all Iranian defences, which then prove rather resilient and formidable, seriously threatening the complete destruction of Israel, then Israel will carpet nuke Iran to take out all Iranian defences. 

This will, sadly, leave Iranian oil too radioactive for anyone to use, and make oil permanently worth much more than current prices, but at least Israel would be safe from Iran, and could start concentrating on taking out Türkiye. 

After all, Israel were promised all the land from the Euphrates to the wadi, and, the Zionists have a new and greatly improved definition of wadi from the ancient Hebrew meaning (an arroyo), to the new definition, Great River, so now the word wadi means the entire River Nile, so Israel runs from the northernmost tip of the Euphrates to the southernmost tip of the Nile, and the Turks need to find someplace else to live, as do all the West Asian Arabs.

But we aren't sure what, exactly, it will take to convince Israel that they have reached a situation that necessitates the use of their nuclear arsenal, or if the Iranian response to an attack by the US and/or Israel would be such a situation.

So it looks like some very interesting times ahead. 

Calendars and Wars

Calendars:

16 Feb 2026 was Chinese New Year. Almost all the world's calendars are lunar, like the Chinese, where New Year can be anywhere from 21 Jan until 20 Feb. 

Note that the old, pre-Roman British calendar must have been lunar, since the word 'month' is very close to the word 'moon', meaning the old British calendar must have been lunar. 

In the Romance languages (I have no idea how 'Roman' became 'Romance' after the fall of the Roman Empire), there is no relation between the world for 'month' and the word for 'moon'.

Unlike the West, where there are big fireworks displays starting at midnight, 1 Jan, the Chinese have fireworks all year long, but sporadic, for weddings and other, similar events. But, starting two weeks before Chinese New Year, there are fireworks from noon until midnight every day. New Year's Day, lots of fireworks all day long, with most (but not all) ending at midnight, then restarting the day after New Year's Day at about 8 am. The Chinese New Year Holiday is about a week long, with lots of fireworks before and after the actual New Year's Day.

Wars 

Last week, I heard that the US military knew that Iran could destroy massive amounts of US matériel, ships and planes, with the loss of many American lives, and the US generals and admirals knew this, and would not be so foolish that they would attack Iran.

This week, I see that the same people who thought war with Iran was out of the question now think it will start very soon: the US think they have located all the Iranian missiles (or at least almost all the Iranian missiles), so the strike will destroy almost all of the missile launchers, and the few missiles that will reach Israel will be well within the capability of the Iron Dome to prevent their doing any damage.

I understand Trump has now sent not just one, not just two, but three Carrier Strike Forces, so the US now have enough firepower to easily overcome all Iranian defences and stop all Iranian offences. Probably false, but wars usually happen when both sides are sure they can win (rarely, when one side knows they are sure to lose, but want to go down fighting).

In any case, if the war does start in the next week or two, we'll find out if the US have the capability to overcome all Iranian defences and offensive attacks, or if Iran will succeed in destroying the US Armada, the US bases in West Asia, and stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. 

The Current Wars: State unknown

As of now, I read in the New York Times that just about every Iranian is waving the old flag used before the Revolution of 1979 and demanding the return of the Shah, the US are supporting them, and the overthrow of the illegal government that has been tenuously holding onto power by ruthlessly murdering every freedom-loving Iranian will very soon be overthrown by the US military and Iran will then be returned to a peaceful and prosperous democracy under the Shah.

Of course, I also read the Ayatollah's propaganda that, while all the Royalist Iranians who fled Iran before (seeing it coming), during (as it was happening) and after the 1979 Revolution that put Ayatollah Khomeini in as Supreme Leader are very few in number compared with the overwhelming majority of Iranians who stayed in Iran after the Revolution of 1979 and found their lives better under the Ayatollahs than under the Shah, and now fully support the Ayatollahs, and they will all work together to fight any American and/or Israeli attack, and, if attacked, will destroy Israel, the US forces sent to attack Iran, the US bases, the oil fields of the countries hosting US bases, and will mine and close the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 25% of the oil traded by sea travels, forcing the price of a barrel of oil up above $700 and severely damaging the global economy, but if Israel and/or the US want to try, while Iran would prefer that they refrain and leave Iran in peace, Iran are ready to do massive damage to Israel, US forces in the region, and the global economy (maybe not the PRC which have a train running between the PRC and Iran that could carry all the Iranian oil that is no longer being shipped on tankers).

Also, the PRC and Russian navies are approaching Iran for 'exercises'.

So, as I said before, last week, Scott Ritter says the US generals and admirals know they will lose in any war with Iran, and since they can veto any orders to attack that they are sure will result in massive losses, no war will take place.

But other experts believe a war between the US and Iran will happen very soon (and generally figure Iran will lose badly, while being able to inflict little if any damage on the US forces, bases, host countries, or Israel).

The original plan was to severely disrupt the Iranian economy starting on 28 December 2025, starting peaceful protests, then to send in 40,000 well-armed supporters of the Shah with lots of weapons and Starlink terminals, so they could be directed by experts at the CIA, Mossad, MI6, and possibly some other European intelligence agencies, severely disrupting the Iranian government and their ability to orchestrate any defence, so the massive attack was to take place on 14 January, 2026, a massive attack called off by Netanyahu after the evil Russians and PRC gave Iran devices that made a Starlink terminal unable to communicate with the directors of the insurgency at the CIA, Mossad, and MI6, and those devices also led Iranian defenders to all 40,000 insurgents with those Starlink terminals, and they were all arrested and are now awaiting trial, so the government was back in full control, the Iranian military were ready to repel and retaliate for any attack, and the Allies against Iran were not ready. So the attack was postponed until 1 February 2026, then postponed again, and no firm date for the next planned attack has leaked out, yet.

And, as of now, it is not at all clear when or if that attack planned for 14 January 2026 will take place. Or what will happen if and when it does.

***

And all the mainstream media in the US/UK/EU assure us that Russia are very weak, their economy destroyed by the sanctions, and the Ukrainians are getting closer and closer to total victory, but the brave Ukrainians do need a lot more money.

Meanwhile, the Russian propaganda media  say the Crimea and the Donbas are now legally part of Russia, and the US/UK/EU backed forces will not be allowed to take or keep a single square meter, and they suggest that Odessa is historically a Russian city that might very well be added to the parts already taken by the Russians.

Russia want all the ethnic Russian parts of the Ukraine, they do not want the Aryan bits, but neither do they want the Aryan bits to join NATO and let NATO put military bases and anti-missiles in their part of the Ukraine. Russia wants the Aryans completely out of power in the Ukraine, with an understanding that the Rump Ukraine cannot have a large, standing military, or an Aryan leader.

Of courses, all the Aryans in the Ukraine, plus the US/UK/EU, all want a rabidly anti-Russian Ukraine that can seize all the valuable oil, gas, and other minerals that are now in Russia but which legally (under US/UK/EU/Ukrainian law) belong to the US/UK/EU oiligarchs, and the Ukrainian Aryans are happy to conscript ethnic Slavs to do all the fighting to liberate Russia and hand control over to some Aryans who will return all the Russian oil and minerals to the rightful owners.

So not clear what's happening in the Ukraine since things are too muddy for serious fighting now, and no one is sure what will happen when the land dries up and military manoeuvres can restart.         

US Defence Dollars at Work

I graduated with a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and/or Mathematics) degree, but no job offers. Science, Technology, and Maths are broad with no obvious applications. Engineering is very specific, so only one or two engineering fields are in great demand in any given year, then engineering students flock to those fields and those fields become overcrowded with job seekers and largely devoid of job openings, while new fields open up with huge demand and no graduates. So almost all of us STEM graduates were not seeing the vast array of jobs we'd been promised when we chose our majors.

But then I got an offer: the US government was offering defence companies $20,000 in cold, hard cash for every STEM graduate they hired, so they hired me.

My first day on the job, I was sent to Orientation with a Vice President. He told me, 'We don't need any T or E, only S and M, Sales and Marketing. Your quota is $250,000. If you don't bring in at least $250,000 in a year, you'll be fired. Now where are you going to go to get a contract for at least $250,000???'

I said I didn't know, did he have some numbers I could cold call? He handed me a thick book.

'You want me to start cold calling these numbers?' I asked.

'NO!' he thundered. 'These are numbers of customers who are already claimed by one of our salesmen, and we do not allow any of our salesmen to poach another of our salesmen's customers.'

(This was a long time ago, now he'd have to say 'salespersons' or 'salesmen and saleswomen', but back then, we had a few saleswomen, but very few, and you don't correct a vice-president over his gender usage.)

'Then whom do you want me to call?' I asked.

'You can call any number that is not in this book,' he answered, then added, 'I can see you're not a salesman, so I suggest you resign immediately. All the time you stay here, you'll just be wasting your time and ours. This interview is over.'

So I left his office. But I had read my contract, and if I quit, I had to repay the US government the $20,000. Or else. I wasn't sure if I could go to jail if I couldn't pay, or just hand over whatever money I got from a burger-flipping job, or what, so I did not resign, and they had me dig holes and fill them up, hoping I'd quit, but I didn't quit, I stayed for a year, then they fired me.

During that year, I met Chuck, and I asked, 'So how, exactly, so you get contracts?'

Chuck told me, 'My best friend in high school got a job as a government contracting officer, and he always gives me $100,000 a year, and that's my quota. I work just two months. I have to help my friend write the Request for Proposals, then he helps me write the proposal, then he recommends me for having the best proposal and coaches me on how to defend my proposal. Then I have to defend the proposal, and the committee has always accepted his recommendation, since he accepts their recommendations to give their contracts to their friends. That takes one month.

'Then, 10 months later, he coaches me on how to write the final report, and I have to present the final report saying we accomplished far more than we promised in the proposal, far more than what was required by the contract, and I get my $100,000 payment made out to the company. That takes the second month. My boss and his boss keep telling me, "Look, you only work two months a year and earn $30,000. If you worked 12 months, you'd earn $250,000 a year, and you and the company would be much better off." '

I looked up the company salary and bonus policy myself. Basically, the company policy was that, if you bring in $100,000, your salary and bonus come to $30,000, but if you bring in $600,000, your salary and bonus go way up, so you get $250,000. My friend continued:

'But I know I only have one friend who's a contracting officer, so if I worked my tail off for 12 months, I'd still earn just $30,000. So why would I waste my time working, when I won't accomplish any more or earn any more than I do barely coming into the office for ten months?'

We had card punch operators back then, and programmers. Officially, the US government did not want salesmen, they wanted STEM graduates doing advanced weapons research, coming up with formulae for new, advanced systems, but really, they just went to lunches and dinners with their contracting officer friends and talked and talked and got contracts, so the US government said they wanted STEM researchers, but the system only rewarded good salespersons.

For a real line of code that was part of a program that solved difficult Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematical problems, the total cost of research, development, programing, and punching the card really was at least $100, and that's what the company charged the government (a $100,000 contract meant 1,000 punch cards).

In reality, the programmer's only job was to write the code that would print out all the numbered lines of code, and, at the presentation of the Final Report, the salesman projected page after page of the print outs of the punched cards, showing there were 10 cards for every $1,000 the contract was worth (million dollar contracts had to have 10,000 lines of code, none of which would compile or run, except the few lines that got the computer to print out the lines punched in the cards, and no one knew enough about programming to know anything was wrong, or if they did, they had every incentive to say, 'I can see that this is brilliant science and coding that will lead to a new, very advanced weapon system.'

Our company did what was called 'basic research,' the underlying scientific research that would later be the basis for the development of actual weapons systems.

I saw the laser: they packed the target with explosives and a radio-controlled detonation system. As the target flew by, some distance away and fairly high up, they shot the laser at the target, someone pressed the button on the detonator, and the target exploded, 'totally destroyed by the advanced laser weapon.'

Ditto the advanced particle beam weapon system.

So the US will have a public defence budget of $1.5 trillion this next fiscal year, and weapons systems less capable than the Iranian weapons systems, let alone the Russian or Chinese weapons systems. And that $1.5 trillion is only the public part, the Classified TS/SCI/NOFORN//BBR part of the Defence Budget is almost certainly much, much larger (but we'll never know how much it is or how it is used).

And because of the huge budget overruns and deficits, gold has gone from $2,000 an ounce a few years ago to almost $6,000 an ounce this year, and this is likely to continue as the real value of the US$ keeps dropping and dropping, thanks to the US government wasting all the money needed for real research and development on fake weapons research.