President Trump and the JCPOA Revisisted?

 The US signed the UN Charter in 1945, agreeing to abide by all the Security Council resolutions (since the US had a veto power, and how could something be so obviously good for the US one day that they would allow the resolution and then somehow become bad for the US later???).

Then President Obama got Iran to sign the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an agreement that, if Iran allowed UN inspectors to verify that Iran had absolutely no Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) the US would end all sanctions on Iran, sanctions applied in 1980 that reduced the Iranian economy by half.

We had seen this before: President Clinton put sanctions on Iraq that blocked just about anything and everything from being sold to or bought from Iraq, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died from lack of food and medicine, with the promise that all sanctions would be lifted as soon as Iraq had UN inspectors verify no WMD, and as soon as those UN inspectors verified no Iraqi WMD, President Bush, Jr. ordered the destruction of Iraq, with hundreds of thousands more civilians killed and all the Iraqi government executed. And, of course, Iraqi oil was returned to the rightful owner, the US, with a little of the oil given to the UK for helping.

Then President Bush, Jr. put sanctions on Libya with the promise to lift the sanctions as soon as Libya had UN inspectors verify no WMD, and as soon as those inspectors verified no WMD, President Obama and Secretary Hillary sent the US, UK, and French military to kill Gaddafi and get all the US oil that Gaddafi had been stealing returned to the US, then President Obama generously gave a little to the UK and France for helping get rid of Gaddafi.

Then President Obama offered to lift all the sanctions on Iran as soon as UN inspectors verified no WMD, and this promise was named the JCPOA and was passed by the UN Security Council, so the US was legally treaty-bound by the JCPOA no matter who was elected president. The basic idea was that, once UN inspectors verified that Iran had no WMD, President Hillary would completely destroy Iran, with all Iranian oil going back to the rightful owner, the US.

Only St Hillary lost the election, Trump won, and President Trump said the US are not bound by silly things like UN Security Council Resolutions.

Before Trump, the US always followed UN Security Council Resolutions, since the US had a veto, so the US never allowed any Security Council Resolution to pass if it were not in the interest of the US. Only Trump figured a Security Council Resolution that was in the interest of President Hillary was not in the interest of President Trump, so, in 2018, President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, UN Security Council Resolution notwithstanding.

Sanctions on Iran continued, but Iran can feed themselves and make most essential medicines, so the US sanctions didn't kill very many Iranians, only a few with rare but treatable diseases where Iran could not buy or produce the necessary medical items.

And then, in 2021, when President Biden was in office, the sanctions on Iran ended. Not through any fault of President Biden (who had no idea what was having his name autopenned on it), but the small group of US Navy Corvettes enforcing the sanctions found a huge fleet of oil tankers accompanied by a sizeable fleet of Naval Frigates, and the US Corvettes had no choice but to allow the fleet of oil tankers to pass unmolested or the Corvettes would have been toast, and the Commander of the small US fleet that had been enforcing the Iran sanctions made the only prudent decision. So the oil tankers filled up with all the oil Iran had available, after unloading whatever they were using to pay for the oil. Most international transactions take place using SWIFT, which the US blocked for Iran, but the buyers figured a non-SWIFT way to pay for the oil, and this continues to this day. So the US sanctions on Iran aren't up to much any more.

Israel wants Iran destroyed, but no one has a clue what would happen if Israel or the US or Israel and the US attack Iran.

Israel have attacked Iran several times, and Iran have retaliated. Israel say their attacks did major damage, while the Iranian attempt at retaliation was completely destroyed by Israel, the US, UK, France, Jordan, and others before any of it could hit Israel.

Iran say the Israeli attacks did little damage while the Iranian retaliation did major damage.

Neither Iran nor Israel have allowed unbiased inspectors to verify how much damage was done, but we do know that an Israeli strike killed 89 attendees at the 2024 memorial service for General Suleimani, who had been killed by the US in January, 2020.

So Israel have been able to kill Iranians with little difficulty and no effective retaliation, but Iran is said to have weapons they haven't used because they do not want a large war, but if Israel or the US engage in a strike that does major damage to Iran, then Iran claim to have weapons that can do major damage to Israel and the US military bases in the Gulf countries and maybe the oil producing facilities in the Gulf countries, and Iran claim they can close the Strait of Hormuz.

Is the Iranian threat real, or just an empty threat? No one knows at this point, not even Iran. Maybe the US and Israel and Friends can completely stop the Iranian attack, and maybe they can't and the attack will do major damage to the US and Israel.

So the real question is, Do Israel and/or the US really want to find out?

But it's a little more complicated than that.

The Fleet of oil tankers that have been filling up with all the oil that Iran can sell is only a small part of the Fleet of oil tankers that also buy a lot of Saudi oil, enough Iranian and Saudi oil that the owner of that Fleet could order Iran and Saudi, enemies for at least 40 years, to become BFF overnight, and they both said, 'Yes, Sir.' Saudi even sent a major diplomat to an Iranian event, and there isn't the slightest sign of that 40 year conflict.

That country will be very annoyed if the US reduce their supply of oil. They have, by far, the most cars of any nation in the world and need more oil than any other nation. And they have the world's largest Naval Fleet. And they will also be very annoyed, along with the Iranians, at any attack on Iran,

The US also want to stop all Russian oil sales, so Russia might figure it's in their interest to stop the US from blocking Iranian oil sales.

WWIII anyone?

So Long Mom???

Tom Lehrer wrote the song, "So Long Mom" back in 1965, when the US and UK and Europe still had leaders who were not stark raving mad, a halcyon time we are likely to see again in the fairly near future, after the US, UK, and Europe have no leaders at all (and few, if any, people).

Germany want to send long range missiles (and German military to fire them) to the Ukraine, planning a strike on a major Russia city, e.g., Moscow or St Petersburg, that will leave Russia little choice but to respond, taking out a minor German city such as Munich or Berlin in order to trigger Article 5.

I think it is worth repeating that, on 19 January 2025, President-elect Trump said the US must stop sending weapons to the Ukraine or the US economy would be destroyed. Then, on 21 January 2025, President Trump said Russia must completely withdraw from the Ukraine or Russia would be completely destroyed. 

Obviously, between 19 January and 21 January 2025, the men who Ray McGovern says always wear dark suits and dark glasses had a little talk with Trump and explained why Kennedy wasn't able to run for a second term.

President Trump is hoping to find a way out of the Ukraine, but that does not seem like a viable option, and the Europeans have hated Russia for the last 220 years that I know of (and maybe a lot longer).

Russia was very weak early in the 20th century, losing one war to Japan, then losing WWI to Germany, then Russia's allies, the US, UK, and France invaded Russia from 1918 until 1920, but didn't get much more territory than Germany had taken in 1917.

Lenin was indebted to Germany for making him leader of the USSR, and not much happened until Stalin took over, when the USSR had the Holodomor from 1928 until 1933.

Then, after the UK PM Chamberlain signed a (faux, but very few knew that) Peace Treaty with Germany in 1938, Stalin decided he'd better sign a Peace Treaty with Germany in 1939.

PM Chamberlain planned for war with Germany after the UK radar system and the French Maginot Line were both completed, and, as soon as that happened, the UK and France asked Poland to blockade East Prussia, an act of war, so Germany attacked Poland from the West, and then Stalin attacked from the East in September 1939, and Germany and the USSR split Poland between them. Britain and France then declared war on Germany (but not on the USSR).

Then, in 1940, Germany easily defeated the British Expeditionary Force and the French Army.

And after that victory, in 1941 Germany attacked the USSR.

The US version says to look at the fierce battles for Leningrad and Stalingrad. Is there any Leningrad on the map? Is there any Stalingrad on the map? None. So the Wehrmacht obviously destroyed the Red Army, and all of Eurasia was under Hitler's control until the US arrived to save the day in 1944, easily and single-handedly defeating the Wehrmacht that had destroyed the BEF, the French Army, and the Red Army.

And now Russia are getting uppity again, with their totally illegal seizure in 2014 of Crimea, an Oblast that properly belongs to the UK(raine?) and then their totally unprovoked invasion of the Ukraine in 2022.

But Russia have already lost more than a million men while the Ukraine have lost about 45,000 according to all the US/UK/EU news media, which are totally reliable, unlike the Russian propaganda press. And the Russians are using parts from washing machines to keep their WWII (and WWI) Soviet and Czarist weapons systems working, so what can Russia do if Germany totally destroys Moscow and St Petersburg?

Sure the USSR had a bunch of nukes, but Russia have no one who can keep those nukes operational, and they know if they respond to the German missiles, it means Article 5 and all of NATO will invade Russia with the same devastating success that Napoleon and the Wehrmacht enjoyed.

At this point, Russian nukes are not really the problem, since Russia don't need them, it's those US nukes that will almost certainly be used as NATO begins losing, and the fact that, while Russia will not be the first to use nukes, they'll almost certainly be the last.

Starting in 1823... Answering Jeffrey Sachs' Question, "Why is Europe so Badly Run?????"

 Prof. Glenn Diesen asked Prof. Jeffrey Sachs to explain why Europe seem to be in such trouble, with unpopular leaders doing things the ordinary citizens in their countries don't seem to like. The answer starts in 1823 when US President Monroe said that all of the Americas belong to the US (well, actually Latin America, Canada, not so much).

For the next 75 years, the US strongly condemned colonialism while practicing neocolonialism.

An Imperial Power like 19th century Britain sent British troops to overthrow the government of a nation and take over. The resident Head of State was the British governor. All senior government officials were British. The ultimate Head of State was the British monarch. British soldiers were ready to shoot any and all rebels against British rule.

Spain had a policy that all Imperial Officers must be born in Spain. The existing officers tended to bring their wives along, and it was hard to arrange a trip back to Spain when the wife got pregnant. The Spanish officers considered themselves and their families Spanish citizens, but the children born outside Spain were not considered full citizens, just colonials with very limited rights.

So the US strongly encouraged these children of Spanish officers, with full Spanish blood, to revolt. The US fully supported them with money, weapons, and possibly with US military support. They got full power in their country, in spite of being a small minority, and, if they wanted continued US support, the US got everything of value (of course, the leadership got very well paid for their support, while the ordinary citizens got nothing).

After WWII, the US asked, 'Why only Latin America?' and set up neocolonial puppet governments in South Vietnam for 10 years, South Korea, Japan, Europe, and Africa (and for 20 years in Afghanistan), while keeping full neocolonial control over Latin America.

So when Sweden, which had been neutral for hundreds of years, were told to join NATO, the government didn't bother to ask the Swedes, who had no say in the matter, they just joined. The Finns, who had hated Russia for years also joined NATO, apparently having forgotten all of the disastrous losses every time they tried to fight Russia, figuring the US would at least enrich all the senior members of the Finnish government and protect them from the Russians. And the government in Switzerland, neutral for as long as anyone can remember, said the US had full control over all Russian assets in Swiss banks, and nothing was said, but the Swiss government must have been very well paid for their doing as they were told.

All Europe are basically a US neo-colony now, with the EU government making the decisions national leaders like Orban don't like but can't stop, and legally overruling elections that pick people who won't properly toe the US line.

So the European leaders with real control over their own countries have that control with US help, and always do whatever the US want, even if it is very bad for their country (but it's certainly very good for the leadership of the countries).

So the US neo-Empire now covers much of the globe, with a few obstreperous objections from places like the DPRK, Iran, Russia, and the PRC, but the US figure they can take them all out, preferably using the lives of proxies rather than American lives.

Holodomor???

 There is no question that there was a Holodomor, but there is a big question about, 'What was it???'

I checked Google and Wikipedia, and all the Google sources I found, including Wikipedia, were in complete agreement: it was an attempt by the Russians to commit genocide on the Ukrainians: all the food in the Ukraine was shipped to Russia and there was mass starvation in the Ukraine. Only a few survived, and they all know that Russia want to finish the job, and that is why Putin ordered a totally unprovoked attack on the Ukraine in 2022. The Ukraine and just about all of the EU and NATO agree that the Ukraine is just the start, Putin wants to restore the USSR and the Warsaw Pact with Moscow in full control, but he won't stop there, he'll then add Western Europe.

Of course, if one checks with other search engines, there's the Russian version.

First, start with the old story: 'I was born in Austria, I went to school in Poland, I got my first job in the Soviet Union, and I retired in the Ukraine.'

'You must have done a lot of travelling.'

'I never left the village where I was born.'

The first problem is that, before there was a Poland, there was no Austria, there was the Austrian-Hungarian Empire that covered a lot of southeastern Europe. Then a Serb shot the Archduke of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and Britain, France, and Russia went to war against Germany, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire in WWI.

After the war, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire was broken up into a bunch of small countries, usually with a mixture of people who hated each other so the countries would never be able to agree to go against the UK and France, but would have to do as they were told. Russia lost a big chunk of West Russia to Germany during the war, then, after the UK, France, and the US won the war, that big chunk of West Russia plus a bit more was mostly made part of Poland, and the Ukrainians who hate Russia the most and make the accusations of genocide against the Russians were not in the Ukraine when the Holodomor happened, they were annexed by Stalin and put into the Ukraine during WWII, both those who had been part of the Russian Empire before the war, and many who had been part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire before the war.

The Russian version is that, in 1928, Stalin wanted all agriculture done in the Communist way, which was supposed to greatly increase agricultural production and make food distribution more fair. In fact, the good Communists put in charge of directing all agriculture knew absolutely nothing about agriculture, and agricultural production fell throughout the USSR resulting in the Holodomor, with many starving all over the USSR, not just the Ukraine, and with some of the other Soviet Socialist Republics having a greater per capita death rate than the Ukraine. The Holodomor ended in 1933 with the end of Stalin's First Five Year Plan.

And the Ukraine grew much larger during and after WWII when Stalin added all that the Russian Empire lost after WWI, plus parts of what had been the Austrian-Hungarian Empire before WWI, and parts of what had been Russia, not Ukraine. Khrushchev also added parts of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia to the Soviet Socialist Republic of the Ukraine.

From what I've read, almost every available source in English supports the Ukrainian version of the Holodomor, but the historical facts cannot.

Has history been too kind to Churchill????

 I read that Churchill wrote that, "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." I'm not completely sure that he said that quote, but it was true when I was a boy and I got schoolchild versions of Churchill's history.

We know that a Serb shot the Austrian-Hungarian Arch-Duke in 1914, and that led to war between France, the UK, and Russia against Germany, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.

We know that Russia lost in 1917 and had to hand over a big chunk of Western Russia to Germany.

We know that the Central Powers, i.e., Austria-Hungary, Germany, and the Ottomans lost in 1918, and then the US, France, and the UK invaded Russia to take a bit more of Western Russia and make it part of the French-UK controlled part of Europe, becoming part of Poland and a few other East European nations, along with the eastern parts of Germany. The Austrian-Hungarian Empire was completely dismantled into many countries (often, like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, combinations of ethnic groups that didn't like each other, so they could not form a united country, but would be subject to UK-French rule).

We know in 1919, Germany was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles that Germany would be forever completely unarmed, with no military (and would pay all German gold to the Allies as war reparations, making the mark worthless and destroying the German economy).

We know in 1933 that France and the UK were terrified of the USSR and allowed Germany to elect Hitler Chancellor on a promise to reject the Treaty of Versailles and re-arm Germany, so Germany would be able to slow the attack of Stalin and give France and the UK time to prepare to fight the USSR. We know that Churchill wrote that he thundered against letting Germany elect Hitler, and said the UK must demand that Germany reject Hitler as Chancellor and pick someone who would abide by the Treaty of Versailles, but we cannot find any Churchill speeches against Hitler in '33 in the newspaper morgues (easily searchable with the Internet). Everyone seems to have agreed that Germany must rearm to slow the advance of the USSR in '33 (and, of course, from 2004 on to slow the advance of Russia).

We know, in 1938, that British PM Chamberlain signed a Peace Treaty with Germany, and promised, 'Peace in Our Time.' We also know PM Chamberlain was lying, he was only buying time. France said they would not join Britain in any war against Germany before they finished the Maginot Line, and Britain knew about bombers, and wanted to complete the radar system that would protect the UK from the Luftwaffe. Churchill condemned this peace deal, and said that a UK victory against Germany would still have been easy in 1938 (but most disagree and are glad that PM Chamberlain delayed for a year).

We know that, in 1939, seeing that the UK and France had signed peace deals with Germany, the USSR signed a peace deal with Germany that said Poland, formed from land taken from Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Germany after WWI, would be returned to Russia and Germany.

We know that Western history says that France, the UK, and the US fought against Germany and the USSR in WWII, which was started by the German-USSR alliance.

We know that, in 1939, the UK and France told Poland to blockade East Prussia from Germany, an act of war that caused German to declare war on Poland, and then the USSR also declared war on Poland, after which Germany and the USSR took back all of Poland that had been taken from Germany and the USSR after WWI. This caused Britain and France to declare war on Germany, expecting the Wehrmacht to be destroyed by the Maginot Line.

We know that, in 1940, the Germans used paratroopers to overwhelm Belgium, then quickly defeated the Anglo-French alliance in France, but the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) made it back to the UK somehow (different versions: some say fishing boats, some say UK troop carriers, some say both were needed to rescue the BEF).

We know that, in 1941, Germany attacked their 'ally' the USSR. The US say the Germans won. The Germans attacked Leningrad and Stalingrad, and, if one looks at a map, there is no Leningrad, there is no Stalingrad, so obviously the Germans won in their war against the USSR, but the US single-handedly defeated the Wehrmacht. Of course, Russia have a different version, but if Russia won, where are Leningrad and Stalingrad???

And in 1945, Germany surrendered. The actual surrender was late, because the Americans allowed the Russians to be there, and it was May 9 in Russia before the Americans let the Germans sign the surrender document, but it was May 8 in the US, UK, and France (and Germany). The US does not celebrate the end of WWII on May 8, but, before, on May 31, and now on the last Monday in May, the US celebrates Memorial Day, in memory of all the soldiers who died in all American wars.

The Russians note that they lost 27 million in WWII, and want some credit for the victory, which the US will never give. 

The US know that all the oil and gas on the planet belong to the US, and are proud of liberating all the Iraqi and Libyan and Syrian oil. Saudi used their Hajj money to buy all the Saudi oil from the US owners, making them the legal owners under US law, about the only legal owners of oil (other than the US) on the planet.

The US oil in Iran must be liberated soon, along with all the US oil in Russia. Cutting the PRC off from all oil should put a dent in their economy, and, we all hope, will ensure total US hegemony over the entire solar system (the US have no intention of stopping with nothing but all of this planet).

Will it be Fire or Ice?????

 Robert Frost wrote a poem called "Fire and Ice", and the version I found on-line had a copyright of 1923, after WWI was "The War to End All Wars" (but wasn't).

The poem is short enough:

Fire and Ice

By Robert Frost

 

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

 

Now, of course, we've had Russia against NATO since the end of the USSR (but Russia didn't know it until 2022, they figured, now that Communism was gone, they could be part of NATO, silly Russians).

But Russia (the world's largest holder of nukes, if they all still work, but with top NATO military analysts saying we have nothing to worry about, they're all inoperative and Russia have no one who knows how to fix them) against NATO has been overtaken by Pakistan against India (both holders of only a few nukes, but a few actually used by two nuclear powers against each other would bring us to a place the world has never been before).

And the US and Israel seem determined to destroy Iran, and no one has a clue about how such a war will turn out (but the US and Israel both figure it will be an easy victory with no bad effects for the US or Israel, just the total destruction of Iran by an overwhelmingly more powerful pair, returning all Iranian oil to the rightful owners of that oil before Iranians stole it--three times--from the rightful owners, the US oiligarchs and maybe the Israeli government for helping).

Others figure Iran has enough unstoppable missiles to totally destroy Israel, the West Asian US military bases, the West Asian oil fields, and block the Strait of Hormuz for many years, making oil prohibitively expensive for the US/UK/EU.

And the US/UK/EU have decided they must destroy Russia to keep Europe safe, which is why the UK and France let Germany rearm in 1933, since they were sure the USSR would try to take all of Europe, and that Hitler fellow was a lot more reasonable than that Stalin fellow and Hitler's futile fight against the USSR would give the UK and France time to prepare for the real battle against the USSR, and they figured that Germany's total destruction by the USSR would buy them the time they needed.

 

Today, Russia try very hard to downplay the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 (for which the US hanged Ribbentrop) that freed Germany to overwhelm Poland, France, and the UK. And the USSR figured the pact meant they didn't need to worry about Germany, which was true until 1941 when Germany got serious about their plan to eradicate all the Slavs in the European part of the USSR (i.e., just about everyone in the European part of the USSR).

The disagreements between Pakistan and India are about 80 years old, but the last big one in the '70s was before they had nukes. So what's going to happen now? No one has a clue.

The disagreement between the US and Iran started about 70 years ago when Mosaddegh nationalised Iranian oil, then cooled down for about 20 years when the Shah agreed that all Iranian oil belonged to the US, then heated up when the Shah nationalised Iranian oil (again) so the US got rid of him and replaced him with an Iranian cleric living in France who was only supposed to care about making Iranian women wear Islamic dress and would be happy to let the US have all their oil back, only he had most of the staff in the US Embassy in Iran taken hostage and kept all the oil. So the US put a total blockade on Iran from about 1980 until 2021 when a fleet of oil tankers protected by a fleet of heavy naval ships broke the US blockade without having to fire a shot (the naval fleet was so strong the US blockading fleet fled). Iran doesn't have any nukes and probably can't get any (but is portrayed by the US as just days away from a massive nuclear arsenal they'll use to destroy the world if the US don't stop them).

Iran say to the world that they don't want any help, but we don't know what they say to the two countries that want to help them if the US and Israel attack.

So the world is in a place they've never been before, with the war between the two nuclear-armed powers Pakistan and India getting hotter and hotter, the war between the nuclear armed US/UK/EU and Russia getting hotter and hotter, and the war between the US/Israel (who both have nukes) and Iran (who don't have nukes, but who might have weapons that can destroy everything they want to destroy) getting hotter and hotter.

So which disaster will come first? And will it be Fire or Ice? 

 

(I have no idea.)

Can Iran Save the World?????

Both Presidents Trump and Biden showed us all that the US president is not the person running the US government, but is supposed to be an actor who reads the TelePrompter with elan and whatever else makes the message on that TelePrompter irresistibly appealing to a majority of the American voters and acceptable to all the US neo-colonies (of which the most important are now the UK and EU).

Trump was given the order to attack Syria on the TelePrompter, but ordered all US troops out of Syria. Twice. And not one troop left: they went in, stole the oil that was supporting the Assad government, which fell six years later, and then the US establishment gave Biden all the credit when he probably didn't even know that Syria had fallen and was now a US/Israeli neo-colony.

Biden managed to read the TelePrompter, with a lot of unrevealed practice sessions in advance, but then couldn't find his way off the stage, and obviously didn't know where he was or what he had just read.

Trump took full credit for killing General Suleimani, but most of the credit goes to Mohammed bin Salman who invited the General to a peace conference in Baghdad, then told the US military when and where the general would be an easy target.

Of course, that's changed, a lot, since the PRC told Saudi and Iran they'd better be friends. Or else.

For years, the US was the biggest buyer of oil, so Saudi did whatever the US wanted. Iran stole America's oil sitting in Iran, twice, so the US set up a naval blockade that prevented Iran from selling oil for 40 years and caused the Iranian economy to shrink by 50%. That was then.

Today, fracking means the US are a net exporter of petroleum products, not the world's biggest importer. Meanwhile, the oil-poor PRC has twice as many cars as the US, most of them needing petrol (a few run on electricity generated by coal, of which the PRC has plenty), so the PRC have become, by far, the biggest buyer of petrol. So when the PRC told Saudi and Iran they had to be BFF, both said, "是的，先生。您说什么都行，先生."

So the people really running the US are determined to see that the US remains not just global Hegemon, but unquestioned, absolute global Hegemon with no nation that can possibly challenge that hegemony. Which means subjugating Iran, the DPRK, Russia, and the PRC. 

The USSR had the most nukes in the world, and Russia got all of them. Do they still work? No one knows for sure. The DPRK has done public tests, so yes, they definitely have nukes that work, but maybe they can't get any of them anywhere near the US, so no real threat after we nuke them? The PRC? Best plan is to take out Iran and then Russia and then cut the PRC off from all energy resources so their economy will collapse. Will that go well? The US Naval blockade on Iran could not stand up to the PRC Navy, but the US did not put all it had into cutting off the PRC, and, anyway, Russia are supplying the PRC with lots of oil, so  just cutting Iran off won't be enough.

So the people running the US want to start with the easiest target, always the best strategy, and that target is Iran since Iran has no nukes.

Raising the Big Question: Is Iran really an easy target???

I was reading a bunch of neocons posting on a discussion group, and they figure, "No problem. Biden was weak, but Trump can and will easily destroy Iran."

I figure the US military all figure the same; Iran will be a very easy target for the US, no effective defences, so the US can easily manage the total destruction of all Iranian nuclear development, offensive and defensive weapons, with nothing left of Tehran, Qom, or the Ayatollahs, with the US the total hegemon over whatever is left of Iran and the unquestioned owner of all Iranian oil. And, as a bonus, Israel will be safe from Iran.

But I've read people who say they know Iran, and, if attacked, Iran can destroy Israel, all the US military bases in West Asia, and all the oilfields in West Asia. Plus, closure of the Straits of Hormuz for many years, in which case Americans will be paying $100s of dollars for a liter of petrol, the UK and EU will be paying a lot more, the Western economies will be destroyed, and the rest of the world will be safe. The US won't be in a position to attack or nuke anyone.

And this felicitous outcome will be all up to Iran, who seem to be all alone.

And seem to like it that way, with no other nation protecting them from the US and Israel.

So Iran may be, single-handedly, the end of US global Hegemony.

Or an easy target, totally destroyed by the US (maybe with a little help from Israel), with no damage to Israel, US military bases, West Asian oil fields, or the Straits of Hormuz, and all Iranian oil going to the rightful owners, the US oiligarchs. 

Of course, since that's what the US military experts all agree is certain to be true, that makes it somewhat likely to be false.

In any case, it looks like we'll find out very soon now.

Must we bring back that old Tom Lehrer song???

Tom Lehrer wrote what he called A Song For WWIII, a song we seem to need now.

On 19 January 2025, president-elect Trump said that the US had to get out of the Ukraine. On 21 January 2025, President Trump said that Russia had to get out of the Ukraine or Russia would be destroyed.

Obviously, most people who get to be president start as teenagers, doing whatever their party asks, learning all the Rules of the Road, and a very few get to be candidates, and one of the two major party candidates goes on to win the election (with a very, very few exceptions like Sanders).

Trump just used his own money to run for and win the presidential election in 2016, and then had no idea that his job was to read the TelePrompter, no ad-libbing allowed. When the TelePrompter said, in 2018, "I order the US military into Syria to bring freedom and democracy," Trump said, "I order all US troops out of Syria."

So they explained things to him and gave him a second chance, and again, he ordered all US troops out of Syria. And some thought the US troops would actually leave Syria, showing how little they understand about how the US works.

Finally, they told Trump this was not going to cost the US taxpayers 1¢, the troops were really going into Syria to steal all the oil and would make a good profit, so Trump gave the order and it was carried out: the troops went in, stole the oil, and a bankrupt President Assad of Syria fled the country in 2024, handing Syria over to former members of al-Qaeda and ISIS who promised to work closely with the US and Israel, and gladly proclaimed they were giving Israel all the water in Syria south of Damascus. A total success for the US military!

They had wanted Trump to order the troops in to bring freedom and democracy, but at least he gave the order sending them in to steal the oil and bankrupt Assad, which was always the real purpose of the mission. And the people who really run the US could live without the 'freedom and democracy' lie.

And now Trump plans to fight Russia over the minerals in the Ukraine, a much weaker, easier adversary than Assad, so Trump should have a quick and easy victory. Of course, he also wants a quick and easy victory over Iran. Not clear, yet, which one will be first, maybe both at the same time.

Reading all the US/UK/EU media, the US military are much stronger than the next ten militaries put together, so, just as the US easily defeated Vietnam…

Well, let's think about Iraq and Libya and Syria where the US got all the oil that Saddam and Gaddafi and Assad were stealing from the US, since it is the US who are the rightful owners of just about all the oil on the planet, and after defeating Russia and Iran, the US will demand that all Russian and Iranian energy resources go to US oiligarchs as war reparations.

Another success was the US getting rid of Mohammad Mosaddegh after he stole (by nationalising) Iranian oil, and then got rid of the Shah after he stole the oil by nationalising it (again), but then the Ayatollahs kept the oil, so the US ordered that no one could buy any Iranian oil and put up a naval blockade that stopped all Iranian oil sales until 2021 when a fleet of oil tankers, accompanied by a strong naval fleet, came and bought all the Iranian oil, so the weak President Biden ordered the US blockade on Iran lifted, since the US could no longer enforce it.

President Trump plans to do something about Iran and Russia, but it's not clear just what, yet. Or in what order.

The Soviet Union once had the world's largest nuclear arsenal,  but Russia are not the Soviet Union, and all those nukes are almost certainly in disrepair and useless, and in any case, Putin wouldn't dare use nukes against the US, since US anti-missile missiles and lasers would stop all those Russian nukes then the US would totally destroy Russia, no doubt about it, at least in the minds of the US military who are the world's top experts in all things military.

So it's time to start practicing that old Tom Lehrer song, since we'll be needing it, probably pretty pronto.

Richard D Wolff Responds: "Winners & 'Likely' Losers: China vs USA Trade War"??? (Dated April 30, 2025)

It is worth watching Professor Wolff's YouTube video that he calls the 'Likely' Trade War between China and the US. He gets a lot right, but not all.

For one, it's not a 'Likely' trade war, the trade war is already happening, with the US attacking and the PRC defending.

As Professor Wolff correctly says, the PRC have all the advantages in the Trade War, and as he worries, also correctly, Trade Wars often turn into actual military wars.

Professor Wolff was going along very well in his video: First, the Chinese Communist Party exercises overall control of everything in the PRC and is making very intelligent decisions (obviously 110% TRVE: the decisions of those running the PRC have been as close to perfect as possible).

And then he notes that the US have not managed to make such intelligent decisions, also obviously true, but his explanation is somewhat lacking: he says that in the US, since production is in the hands of private companies, each with different chief executives who cannot coordinate under anti-trust law, such intelligent control is impossible in the US.

However, Professor Wolff misses that, over the Chief Executives of US corporations are the Governing Boards of those corporations, and a small group of people sit on the boards governing all the major corporations, and those people move easily and frequently between senior government jobs and senior private jobs, often holding both simultaneously, US laws notwithstanding.

In the 19th century, the US built the world's largest rail network, linking just about all of the US. By 19th century standards (slow though they were), it was a high-speed rail network.

In Europe, the British had a rail system, the French had a rail system, the Germans had a rail system, etc., etc., and one could buy a ticket on the Orient Express and make one's way from Liverpool to the near Orient, using British and European rail networks (and a boat to cross the English Channel), but only by coordinating different national railroads. (And one can read novels and watch movies about the Orient Express, even if one couldn't travel on it.)

But now, the PRC have a large network of high-speed rail (part of a rail network that is much larger than the US rail network ever was) adding to the overall success of the PRC economy while the US have no high-speed rail network (and many problems in the existing US rail network). Wolff says this is only because the Chinese Communist Party have overall control of the PRC economy and so can make decisions that are very unprofitable while the US do not have such a network because there is no US Party having such overall control, so a totally unprofitable network cannot be built.

That's where Wolff's economics break down: if that high-speed rail network is really so unprofitable, it must be hurting the PRC economy, but the PRC economy is booming. The US economic system would be greatly helped by such a system, but it can't be built because it would be very unprofitable. This makes no economic sense. What it means is that the US economy has serious flaws that make it impossible to complete a project the completion of which would add greatly to the US economy (the project has been started several times, but little progress was made because the US economic flaws, not to mention US leadership flaws, have made all such starts so incredibly expensive that none have even come close to completion).

The real conclusion is that a very small group of people who have all the intelligence (and connections) to rise to the top of the US power system have made a lot of decisions which have been very profitable for the decision makers but not very good for the overall US economy or for ordinary Americans, while the small group of people who managed to rise to the top of the PRC power system have made a lot of very intelligent decisions that benefitted everyone in the PRC.

And no one has a clue how to change the way the US works, so the US uses wars to destroy and pillage, taking Iraqi and Libyan and Syrian oil, and doing all they can to get the Iranian, Venezuelan and Russian oil into the hands of US oiligarchs (the Venezuelan and Iranian and Russian projects do not seem to be going nearly as well as the Iraqi and Libyan and Syrian projects went, while the Russian project seems certain to go horribly wrong--sorry, as Hamlet said, ' “Seems,” madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.” ').