Eve Ottenberg

Eve Ottenberg

   Jean Luc Melenchon is doing well with French voters, while his chief rival, arch-rightist Marine LePen, is not. White-bread centrist president Emmanuel Macron is term-limited and so, thank God, cannot run again. The path for Melenchon and his party, La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) should be clear; if for any reason it isn't, that – and it would not be the first time – would be suspicious.

   In 2024 Melenchon's party within the "far-left" New Popular Front won the most seats in parliament, costing Macron his majority. Had he followed precedent and tradition, Macron would have picked a prime minister from the New Popular Front or La France Insoumise. But the French president's reaction appeared to be, "Horrors! Anything but that!" So per Google, Macron broke with the past. He picked someone deeply unpopular, Michel Barnier, from the right-wing party, Les Republicans. Barnier had to resign in December 2024. Suffice it to say, this move did not endear Macron to the French. In fact, one might conclude that Macron's allergy to the winning parliamentary party cost him the sliver of popularity he did cling to and indeed, politically backfired.

   Melenchon will run for president in 2027 for the fourth time, aiming to address the economic crisis and opposing foreign atrocities like the Gaza genocide. Routinely described in corporate media as "hard left," Melenchon is an anti-capitalist regularly tarred by publications like Politico (May 6) as divisive and his comments even "deemed by some as antisemitic." Clearly Politico would prefer the more-likely-to-compromise Green or Socialist candidates, but those parties – happily for the ordinary people who support Melenchon – are in disarray, so their followers could well vote La France Insoumise. The May 6 Politico article speaks deprecatingly of his party as "a well-oiled machine built largely for Melenchon's presidential ambitions." Or, maybe more forthrightly, it's an effective old-left movement that, shockingly to outlets like Politico, might actually win.

   What kind of president would Melenchon be? Well, here's a tiny sample of his recent tweets. "In May, 6 femicides in 9 days. 36 since the start of the year. And what? Nothing? What kind of society are we? Why does nothing happen?" And from May 8: "The National Rally [far-right] is our main adversary. This party of incompetents would turn France into an ethnonationalist nation eaten away by racism. In the second round, Marine Le Pen prefers a candidate from the 'central bloc' facing her: they spout rhetoric just as terrifying as hers. And she would beat them, because voters prefer the original to the copy."

   Other tweets decry astronomical fuel prices, the French colonial mentality vis a vis Algeria, the brutal Israeli invasion of Lebanon, promise – at long last – to remove France from NATO, call it "a disgrace that France did not give the Lebanese the means to form an army to protect the borders," and insist that "we have a vested interest in bringing the Russians back to the European side."

   This last remark about the Russians Melenchon links to Ukrainian nuclear power plants and the chance that any trouble with them, i.e. radioactive meltdowns, would adversely impact "the entire Mediterranean and its 500 million surrounding resident." That's putting it mildly. Melenchon does not specify who might be responsible for the possible bombings that could cause such catastrophic meltdowns, but it's worth nothing that thus far in this Ukraine War, Kiev has consistently made the nonsensical claim that Moscow is bombing itself, to wit, the nuclear power plants in Ukraine that it controls. And if you believe that, I have nothing further to say to you.

   So Melenchon offers a mix of old and new left solutions to persistent problems; in other words, he apparently wants to do what works and is not hidebound by ideology or dogmatism, as the centrist press likes to imply, with its use of what it evidently hopes is the scarifying term "hard-left." Well, ever since the yellow-vest uprising, France has cast around for someone not of the center. How Macron won as he did is a mystery, maybe even legitimate fodder for a conspiracy theory. But as Melenchon noted, the center is really but a copy of the far-right. And La France Insoumise is the only party offering something different. But expect an attack of the vapors in European Union leadership if Melenchon actually wins. He is the EU's worst nightmare, and everyone remembers how this gang of unelected European bosses reacts to nightmares or even just to bad dreams. How do we remember? From what the EU did to Greece when it had the temerity to elect a left-wing government in 2015. The EU, led by Germany, crushed the Greek government, the ruling political party Syriza, and, along the way, the Greek people and to a certain extent, democracy in Europe.

   But the battle isn't over, as the astute, partisan journalist Thomas Fazi steadily reports. He and Melenchon would doubtless agree not only on France withdrawing from NATO, but also, most likely, on France's place in what Fazi called in a September 3, 2025 substack article, "the censorship industrial complex," and on Macron's role in it, particularly his "persistent urge to cultivate direct ties with the CEOs of major digital platforms. He notably granted French citizenship to Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snapchat, and to Pavel Durow, CEO of Telegram – now facing indictment in France on multiple serious charges. Macron has also held several meetings at the Elysee Palace with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and head of Meta."

   Fazi argues – as AI (I'm sure he'd be interested to know) summarizes this reporter's extensive work – that Macron managed to marginalize "the left while absorbing the National Rally into the mainstream," and the consequences of such centrist manipulation throughout Europe – consider how successive supposedly middle-of-the-road German governments have catapulted the possibly fascist Alternative fur Deutschland's popularity through the roof – are dire. They especially impact Melenchon, regarded by both the right and the faux center as an existential threat. And with the at least post-2025 new relationship to political speech on social media of Macron and the class he represents, how La France Insoumise responds to its inevitable caricatures in the news will be consequential. Hopefully Melenchon will not take cover in identity politics platitudes – though a bit of this may be necessary – because while it will gain votes in one corner, it will lose them in another, namely, those multitudes of formerly yellow vest protestors.

   Not that this seems like a danger Melenchon can't navigate. He is 74, has been in politics over 45 years, is quite able to do this political calculus and certainly able to find commonalities between immigrants in France and the working-class indigenous French who might be swayed by Le Pen's poisonous rhetoric. He started out in the Socialist Party and has moved only left since – to his immense credit, given that everyone else has been busy selling out and moving right. He is no political chameleon or careerist. With any luck, he will be the next president of France.

Eve Ottenberg

   He has blockaded Cuba, and now he's expanded the sanctions. Donald "Uber-Capitalist" Trump is relentless in his war on this tiny nation of 11 million people, whose courage, solidarity and grit has inspired all ends of the global political spectrum, from Claudia Scheinbaum's left-leaning Mexico to Vladimir Putin's traditional-values-championing Russia. Fortunately, some of these onlookers have even been inspired to act. Moscow already broke the blockade by dispatching one enormous oil tanker to Havana and is sending another, while other nations have donated various necessities. Beijing has been especially generous with everything from rice to thousands of solar panels. It kinda invites the comparison between Trump and Ebeneezer Scrouge. Not a good look for a man obsessed with his appearance.

   On May 1, Trump's new sanctions took aim at "officials, entities…as well as people operating in Cuba's energy, defense, mining and financial sectors," reported Democracy Now! "Foreign banks and companies that do business with sanctioned Cuban entities could also be cut off from U.S. markets." Never has the planet's need for a new, non-U.S. financial architecture glared more apparently, because Washington wages relentless, endless economic war on any nation anywhere that refuses to bow to it. Though U.S. financial assaults on Cuba are not, unlike those on BRICS countries, liable to catapult the dollar into its grave as the world's chief reserve currency, you can be sure China and Russia have taken note. It's one more nail in the coffin of dollar supremacy, one more argument, come the next BRICS summit – and BRICS, by the way, speaks for 45 to 55 percent of the world's population and holds 40 to 44 percent of the world's purchasing power parity – for expanding the yuan as a reserve currency and, even, for BRICS creating its OWN currency.

   In other words, American sanctions, which have already backfired spectacularly in certain corners of the globe (think Russia), are still used as promiscuously by Mr. Trump as by his predecessors, to the fury of just about everybody, a fury that's far from impotent. The irony here is that Trump periodically erupts with threats against anyone who harms the almighty dollar; but with his refusal to kick the sanctions habit, he's got the same self-defeating addiction as all his predecessors. His sanctions temper-tantrums, like those of every other recent president, kill people in the Global South. This is a form of warfare, leading everyone who can quite rightly to shun the dollar. So sooner rather than later, the dollar will no longer hold the world reserve currency prize, and we lucky dogs in the heart of the Empire will get smacked with eye-popping inflation.

   Also on May Day came the Cuban government's International Worker's Day celebration. "With a severe energy crisis that has sent food prices soaring, morale plummeting and transportation halting," reported the New York Times that day, over half a million Cuban Communist Party supporters attended the celebration. Meanwhile Trump's executive order, issued that day, claims that Cuba "constitute[s] an unusual and extraordinary threat…to the national security and foreign policy of the United States." As Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canal riposted: "One has to ask: What is the threat? What is extraordinary about that threat? What is unusual about that threat, when Cuba is a country of peace?"

   Then, according to an X summary May 2, "at a dinner in West Palm Beach on Friday, Trump joked about using the USS Abraham Lincoln to force Cuba's quick capitulation." Two days later X added that Diaz-Canal "called the U.S. a 'fascist government'…amid the island's deepening crisis of food shortages, blackouts and inflation." Again, who is aiding the grotesquely bullied Cubans? Front and center stand the Russians. Moscow's first tanker arrived in the port of Matanzas March 31, with roughly 730,000 barrels of oil. Meanwhile by May 5, a second Russian tanker got about 1000 miles from the Cuban coast, with 270,000 barrels of diesel. But according to Bloomberg May 5, that second tanker has stalled.

   "For the last two weeks," wrote the Guardian May 3, "U.S. surveillance aircraft have been circling the island in an echo of what happened in Venezuela before the January 3 abduction of Nicolas Maduro." Clearly Trump wants to drive Diaz-Canal from office, because just as clearly, the Trump who posed as an anti-interventionist candidate and bragged that as president he had started no new wars, is in fact all-in with the neoconservative putsch fanboy agenda. He failed spectacularly in Iran; assaults on China are on hold; Russia is beating the crap out of the NATO army in Ukraine; so what does the U.S. power elite have left? Not much. Kidnapping socialist presidents and lording it over tiny communist islands 90 miles from Key West. Simultaneously, however, as reporter Richard Medhurst has written copiously on X for weeks and in a stunning substack investigation May 1, under Trump the U.S. has pursued global energy supremacy and largely achieved it. Venezuela – check. Gaza/Syrian gas fields – check. Kettling Arctic transit of oil to China – check. What remains? I'll tell you: a tiny country called Russia, which Washington had hoped to balkanize but failed, so instead, its Ukrainian puppet flies hundreds of drones at Russian energy installations, rashly risking a nuclear war with NATO.

   Which is to say that while the U.S. military can't beat anyone else's military, and hasn't been able to since the Korean War, the U.S. is very good at "stealing the oil." That's because here in the USA, we have the smartest, most ruthless, most experienced, most cohesive, most amoral capitalists in the world. They may not be able to defeat Iran in a fair fight, but they can make it darn difficult for Tehran's oil to get to market. And while Iranian oil is largely blockaded, Washington price-gouges the world for its ridiculously expensive LNG. So the oil companies make bank, the white house plays and rigs the stock market, and Wall Street smiles, while the rest of us go flat broke. As Trump said on television just recently about the barrel price of oil, "even if it's $200, it's worth it." Worth it to whom? I mean, it's easy for him to say. He's a billionaire – not a farmer paying $300 to fill the tank of his work vehicle.

   So now Trump evidently thinks toppling Diaz-Canal would be a glittering anti-communist feather in his cap. He has all but told the Cuban president to get out or else. Diaz-Canal hasn't budged. So what next? A repeat of the Venezuelan acrobatics? Or have U.S. spooks not as thoroughly infested the Cuban military as they did the Venezuelan one? That's probably no concern for the white house, which doubtless has plenty of other dirty tricks up its sleeve and fiendishly commie-hating advisors – the alarming and shadowy Elliott Abrams comes to mind though he is not officially in this iteration of Trump's rule – quite capable of implementing them.

   In short, we have the clever bandits in Washington pillaging the globe and apparently winning at that hands down via market manipulation, other financial skullduggery and, when needed, deploying the military as its paramount "gangster for capitalism." That gangster is possibly headed for Cuba, though why and why now are the wildly ostentatious questions of the hour. Well, there's a reality TV star in the white house, and the Trump show must go on.

 

 

 

 

Eve Ottenberg

   With official numbers of U.S. unhoused hovering around 700,000 and the reality being much, much more, former president Genocide Joe Biden got one thing right by stressing shelter for the destitute. Current president, Donald "Blockade Everybody" Trump gained nothing but censure for his plan to shift that emphasis to mandatory mental health care, when the truth is our vast pool of vagrants indisputably needs much more than just meds or shelter. A roof over one's head is critical, indeed existential in winter. But those who hallucinate angels telling them to sleep outdoors or to jump off a high bridge – they need anti-psychotic medication and anyone who denies that is sticking his/her head in the sand.

   Of course, public sympathy has always gone foremost to law-abiding, well-meaning, working-poor families who couldn't make rent and wound up on the street. It has even been argued that this cohort constitutes the lion's share of our nation's homeless, and I, for one, believe it, given the rapacity of the landlord class under decaying, financialized, very late capitalism. The National Institutes of Health in October 2020 backed this up, noting that only 25 to 30 percent of homeless people suffer afflictions like schizophrenia. On the other hand, the insane lack the appeal of unjustly evicted families, while these days fewer of them may well sleep on sidewalk grates or in sewers. But when homelessness really surged in this country back in the mid-1970s, the transparent cause was the idiotic new policy of ejecting patients from asylums with nothing but bus fare and 30-days-worth of meds. Well do I recall the small corner park in my Manhattan neighborhood, which went from being always empty at twilight one evening to being permanently packed with vagabonds literally the next. The new, cheapskate policy for those in mental agony had taken root.

   This is not to say that the other leg of Trump's policy for the unhoused, namely enforcement, is anything but sickening. That's exactly what it is. "Enforcement," when applied to destitute people means rousting them out of their meager shelter, like tents, so that they can sleep under the stars. If the Trump policy provided four walls and a roof to those it dispossesses of their sleeping bags, I'd be all for it. But it doesn't. It supposedly provides mandatory mental health and substance abuse help, and to the extent that it does so without violence, that's a good thing. But police clearing encampments, often in search of immigrants, and telling everyone to just beat it, is not a policy. It is the disguised, fascist underside of capitalism, aka cruelty.

   According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 4.2 million "youth and young adults" are homeless annually. They are not all orphans. That means a good percentage of them are accompanied by at least one unsheltered adult. To get an idea of how many adults that means, you must break the numbers down: "Public schools identified more than 1.5 million students," as unhoused in 2023-2024, per AI. In 2026, almost 450,000 infants and toddlers were homeless, while roughly 700,000 "youth are unaccompanied minors," reports the NCSL. So add 1.5 million public school students to 450,000 babies and you've almost got 2 million destitute children, every two or three of which are attended by an equally destitute, nomadic adult; at the very least – my guess is more – 1 million adult Americans without formal lodging, and that's just the ones with kids. Politicos like California governor Gavin Newsom and Trump, who want to sweep them out of sight or supreme court justices like Neil Gorsuch who empower such bigwigs to do so are not merely iniquitous – they are trying to conceal an ocean of absolute poverty behind a fence of straws. And they mangle the lives of the dispossessed in the process.

   Moves like the Trump regime's April 15 assault on Catholic Charities, by stripping it of $11 million to retaliate against Pope Leo, are repulsive. On X, Substack reporter Christopher Hale called this attack "an unprecedented violation of religious liberty…shutting down a shelter for homeless children – just days after President Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV." According to the National Catholic Reporter April 16, the Trump-cancelled contract to shelter unaccompanied migrant children occurred partly in the context of an abrupt 2025 cessation "of a decades-long partnership with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for refugee resettlement." Catholic Charities, per the Miami Herald, provided, "the equivalent of a federally funded foster care system" like the one run by the states.

   For these orphans, getting guardians in foster care is literally the gold standard. It is, realistically, the best they can hope for. If eviscerating federal efforts in this direction is white house policy, we've got a problem, namely government institutionalization and expansion of the social wound already ripped open by our sick economic system, a wound called homelessness. Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami told the NCR of this Trump-targeted program's many benefits, "given the trauma that many of these children have endured before arriving in the U.S." he might have added that most arrive from Central American nations already flayed raw by U.S. financial pirates, so Washington bears responsibility for those childhood traumas, to say the least.

   It is immaterial why the white house did this; but in this action multiple lousy purposes do converge: punishing the pope for criticizing the astoundingly stupid Iran War, terrorizing nonwhite immigrants, abusing the homeless, all of whom are basically regarded by the uni-party as detention-camp material with the possible exception of homeless veterans. You want the only proof of this possible preference? The stat on the veteran unhoused is that their numbers dropped by 7.5 percent from 2023 to early 2025, for a new low total of 32,882, because over 50,000 veterans found abodes by 2025. But who's complaining? Not me. Any decrease in the millions of Americans living rough is laudable, though it's sad that you must kill or risk being killed in the American military to merit government attention to you sleeping on a park bench. (It was the Veterans Administration, largely, that housed these former soldiers.)

   Trump has gone large, very large in promising domiciles for veterans, yet according to the L.A. Times April 22, "veteran housing is AWOL in the VA budget proposal." More specifically, el jefe "promised housing for 6,000 veterans at the West L.A. VA campus, but the VA's budget proposal requests no funding for a single new bed," mystifying and disappointing vets. "The budget would displace about 330 current residents from treatment programs with no indication where they would be temporarily housed or for how long."

   Think back to last May and Trump's grand words about a new National Center for Warrior Independence in West Los Angeles. Well, those warriors will be independent all right – independent to sleep under overpasses or, if they're lucky, in their cars. Adding insult to injury, this new non-budget for homeless vets "comes as Trump is asking for a colossal $445 billion increase in the defense budget and spending billions every week on a deeply unpopular war with Iran."

   So maybe the uni-party's romance with veterans doesn't really extend to those who sleep without beds or have to use public toilets. Maybe when push comes to shove, our rulers fall silent, because they have no intention of spending one freakin' dime on any beggar in rags. Such people truly are non-persons to our rulers, our economy, our society, except when it's campaign time; then they snag their moment in the sun until, the usual again, which is, from the dems and the GOP – all talk and no action.

 

Eve Ottenberg

   Four senators raised doubts April 17 about Donald Trump's stratagems for cryptocurrency, aka a stablecoin, in Gaza. Their press release that day makes clear that Oregon's dem senator Jeff Merkley, Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) quite sensibly fret over the ethics of this shady move "given the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas," as press aides termed it. Between Israel and Hamas? How about between Israel and Gaza's residents, whom Jerusalem has been massacring and starving ever since this so-called truce took effect? But hey, half a loaf's better than none: it's great that someone in officialdom is calling out this swindle and its relation to atrocious Israeli behavior.

   Corruption is the senator's main concern. However, they also worry that stablecoin use in Gaza will further aggravate the enclave's separation from the West Bank, where Israeli shekels are the currency. The lawmakers also ask, "Has the 'Board of Peace' consulted with the Palestine Monetary Authority on the introduction of this stablecoin? Have Palestinian officials had the opportunity to provide input on the development of this stablecoin? [I would bet no]...Would the stablecoin be used to surveil the transactions of Palestinians?" And they have other questions, as who in their right mind wouldn't?

   Of particular concern to these four lawmakers is the involvement of a former Israeli intelligence official, Liran Tancman, notable for his role in founding the disastrous, blood-drenched Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The GHF, you may recall, "distributed" food to Gazans, while somehow not preventing 1200 Palestinians from being murdered by the IDF. The senators reference this as "Mr. Tancman's failed record of privatizing traditional humanitarian functions through GHF." That's the understatement of the year. "What is Liran Tancman's role in the development and implementation of this stablecoin?" The legislators ask. "What are his official duties at the 'Board of Peace?' Does Mr. Tancman stand to benefit financially from its creation? If so, how? What ethics and financial disclosures, if any, did Mr. Tancman complete before serving as an 'unpaid advisor' to the Board of Peace?" My guess would be zero, as appears customary with many of the Trump white house's fly-by-night financial endeavors.

   In fact, sleazy possibilities abound with this novel money arrangement for Gaza. The senators note that a "Board-controlled stablecoin could give external actors unprecedented influence over Gaza's financial system…Meanwhile the use of stablecoin increases the ability of external actors to restrict financial transactions among Gaza residents" The press release cites Merkley's long-standing "alarm over Trump's crypto corruption." The subterfuge to foist such venality on Gaza has long been in the works as part of reconstruction efforts. A strange way to reconstruct, to put it mildly.

   The senators' press release contains the text of their letter to secretary of state Marco "Bilk Gaza" Rubio. "You serve on the 'Executive Board…'" they write. "Thus far, the Board appears to have made minimal meaningful progress in rebuilding Gaza [does it even intend to do this?]; it did, however, recently present a slide deck at the World Economic Forum in Davos pitching a $25 billion plan to build 'gleaming skyscrapers rising on Gaza's coast and the construction of entirely new cities' in the enclave." Sounds like Trump hasn't given up on his ghastly Gaza Riviera project, and Palestinians can only hope that he'll be so distracted by his multiple blockades in Iran, Cuba and who knows where else, that he won't have time to further immiserate these destitute people; all as Israelis continue to wage their war of attrition against the Gazans, whittling down the population as they commit massacres, refuse entry to food trucks and brazenly, illegally expand the area of the enclave under their official control.

   Meanwhile, Trump's Board of Empire has done its true, intended job, namely kicking Gaza not only off the front page, but, it seems, out of the news altogether. Except in venues like the Middle East Eye, which reported April 19 on the emotional torture endured by families of missing Gazan children, who leave home to do things like collect firewood, make the dreadful error of approaching Israeli troops and, presto, disappear. As one mother told the publication, "I feel like I am going crazy. The anguish I feel is unbearable."

   For any unthinking soul who doubts that a parent could lose her mind over a murdered child, read the account in this story. "Around 2900 Palestinian children…have gone missing in the war-torn enclave since the Israeli genocide began," MEE reports. In addition to these kids' awful deaths or disappearances, spare a thought for the over 2900 parents, whose minds and lives these living nightmares destroy. And that, of course, is not to mention the parents of the over 20,000 Gazan children murdered by the IDF, whose fate is not at all uncertain.

   The "Board of Peace" has muffled all this, as was intended. Which is why it would be nice, if someone, like maybe the four previously mentioned, quite intelligently concerned senators, could rein it in. They argue that the stablecoin proposal entails risk of conflicts of interest (surprise!). "World Liberty Financial – founded by President Trump and his sons, and Steve Witkoff and his sons – continues to promote its own stablecoin, USD1," which makes it a likely choice for Gaza. "Another option is Tether, 'the most popular stablecoin in the world.' Tether has deep connections to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, holds a five percent stake in the company." Well, that reeks.

   The senators note that "Gaza's financial system is under extraordinary strain" and that support of it is needed, "but that support must augment, not undermine, the ability of the Palestinian people to govern themselves and be free of conflicts of interest." Unfortunately, the whole purpose of the Board is to promote conflicts of interest. Writing to Rubio, the lawmakers try to curb this with eight requests for detailed responses by April 24.

   First, they ask for provision of the proposal to launch stablecoin; then whether the U.S. pledged "any monetary support for stablecoin in Gaza and if so the statute for this pledge" (always good to know), "along with the expected source of funds;" info on the role of World Liberty Financial, particularly Steve Witkoff in this proposal; whether the Board's partners, the National Committee on the Administration of Gaza and the office of the High Representative, have financial interests in stablecoin; Jared Kushners's role in this stablecoin proposal; whether the Board checked with the Palestine Monetary Authority about using stablecoin (probably a no); "would stablecoin be used to surveil the transactions of Palestinians [probably a yes]?" And lastly the slew of inquires previously mentioned about Tancman's role in the development and implementation of this stablecoin.

   I seriously doubt Rubio will be able to answer these questions. If he attempts to, it seems most unlikely to me that he'll do so forthrightly. Given that, the senators might want, pre-emptively, to demand the dissolution of this monstrosity, "the Board of Peace," the Board of Genocide, the Board of Empire, or whatever you want to call it. Let's wish them luck.

 

Eve Ottenberg

   When the Chinese tanker, Rich Starry, defied the U.S. blockade April 14 by going through the Strait of Hormuz, it redefined the blockade. This easy transit may have had something to do with a statement, the day before, by China's defense minister, Admiral Dong Jun, at the beginning of the U.S. blockade: "Our ships are moving in and out of the waters of the Strait of Hormuz. We have trade and energy agreements with Iran. We will respect and honor them and expect others not to meddle in our affairs. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and it is open for us."

   Although the U.S.'s, under Donald "Take the Oil" Trump, sole purpose seems to be to corner the planet's energy market (vide Trump's Venezuelan escapades and more recent Iranian ones) this program has several fatal flaws, most especially "upending an emerging détente with China," as the New York Times put it April 14 and, even more inanely, fails to take into account that U.S. global oil strangulation has boosted Russian energy profits into the stratosphere, so that, if Moscow wants, it can sell discounted oil to Beijing. Oh, and also, China sends its solar tech all over the world, recently, most notably, to Cuba, where U.S. secretary of state Marco "Regime Change" Rubio convinced el jefe to choke off all energy supplies, something at which the Kremlin, being blockade-averse for historical reasons rooted in the horrifying Nazi siege of Leningrad, responded by sending a huge tanker loaded with oil to Havana. And another is on the way.

   Meanwhile in mid-April, the Iran Observer announced on X: "China Warships in Hormuz!" This post included photos of PLA Navy ships, though of course they could have been anywhere. But if the Iran Observer is accurate, that may account for the ease with which on April 14, the Chinese tanker and three other Iran-linked ships transited the Strait. Or that could have had something to do with the six submarines, two nuclear, that Moscow plunked down near the Strait of Hormuz, back on April 5. Whatever the cause, China and Russia are in the Persian Gulf, but both they and western media apparently wish to be very discreet about it – though for nearly opposite reasons. The Chinese and the Russians because they do everything they can discreetly, while western media, on the other hand, wants to hype U.S. power, and stories about the Eurasian military giants' presence in the Persian Gulf don't do that.

   How much money is Moscow making in the oil trade thanks to Trump's ill-considered and barbaric blockade? $117.46 per barrel as of April 14 – a big surge caused largely by Don Coreleone in the white house throttling Hormuz. Prior to February 28, when Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu took it into their heads to attack Iran, Russian Urals crude went for $57 to $58 per barrel. Over the course of early March, the price spiked, and has been spiking ever since, so that Moscow is now making money hand over fist. So's Tehran. And just in case the Trump dimwits' plan to starve China of oil actually starts to work, the Kremlin has jumped in, as yours truly predicted recently in these pages and, despite its recent cutoff of all gasoline exports, offered to lend China a helping hand. "Russia can plug any oil supply gap and help China…withstand U.S. 'aggressive adventures,' Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has said," RT reported April 15. "Lavrov's remarks came after U.S. Treasury Secretary [and primo airhead] Scott Bessent warned on Tuesday that China is 'not going to be able to get their oil…not Iranian oil." Bessent also boasted, erroneously (surprise!), that Beijing's ships would not pass through Hormuz, an idiocy that may have prompted Trump's proclamation the next day that he was opening the Strait "for China."

   In fact, Trump announced that he would "PERMANENTLY reopen" the waterway "after Beijing supposedly agreed not to send weapons to Iran," RT reported April 15. Note the word "supposedly" in this headline. As a regular reader of RT, I can tell you that that is the first time in some years I have seen that word in a headline. So the take from official Moscow might be skepticism? Ya think? And don't you think Moscow has a more informed view of Beijing's activities and needs in the Persian Gulf than Trump? Well, you could say many people do and you'd be correct, but the Kremlin especially. Russia, China and Iran have an alliance, the genuine article. Not just some marriage of convenience, like the deformities we see between the U.S. and its proxies. The notion that Chinese president Xi Jinping promised Donald Trump to stop arming a vital ally, with whom China has a relationship of alive, tested loyalty and to whom China has given planeloads of armament as that ally was beaten bloody by Israel and the U.S., and as that ally fought back valiantly, with China and Russia at its side – well, that notion is preposterous.

   Maybe the hilarious internet memes about blockading a blockade shamed Trump, or maybe the brainless apercus of Scott Bessent and voluble nitwit Florida Republican senator Rick Scott, who announced on a talk show that he was so keen on busting up China's economy that he didn't care if the blockade caused high prices here – maybe the nonpareil observations of these morons about their comfort with Trump causing a worldwide depression alarmed the president. Or maybe he found even more alarming Iran's minatory statement that it is waiting for the ceasefire to end before making "the blockade extremely painful for the U.S.," according to a military source quoted by Iran Observer on X April 15. "All imports and exports in the region will be banned. Ports throughout the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman will be targeted. The Red Sea will also be blockaded, and experience shows that the U.S. Navy will not be able to reopen it."

   Well, that's enough to sober up even the most intoxicated narcissist. Because yes, that's exactly what experience shows, namely, when the Houthis shut down the Red Sea in solidarity with the bombed, poisoned, injured, traumatized, destitute, murdered and homeless people of Gaza, there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell of the U.S. navy or Israel's mesmerizing tech reopening it. And they tried. But alea iacta est. Geography and Houthi grit stumped the American/Israeli aggressors, who, it turns out, are much better at slaughtering civilians, firebombing cities and torturing the next generation – as Israel has done in Gaza, where its military pollutants and chemicals, to which pregnant women have been exposed, have led to a huge cohort of infants born with agonizing deformities. That's certainly what Israel is good at, and the U.S. is no slouch in that department either. So maybe Trump had some vague sense of his military's limitations and what these deficits mean, namely that when faced with actual, competent, well-armed, highly committed troops, failure looms as a distinct possibility. Much easier to blow up a girl's school and prestigious universities in Iran or to incinerate hospitals in Gaza.

  In four weeks, Trump sojourns to Beijing, a journey most portentous for U.S./China relations, the American economy, the Empire's continued global reach and for the boss of bosses personally. Suffice it to say, if Trump flubs this, due to his half-wit underlings' or birdbrain members of the uniparty's oracular pronouncements on the wretched U.S. blockade of Hormuz, he thoroughly tanks his "legacy." And that legacy lately skates on thin ice. There's Venezuela – truthfully or not, he gets to claim a big win there. There's Gaza, where he can say at least he reduced the blood-letting, unlike Genocide Joe Biden, who was apparently happy to let the Israelis turn the entire enclave into a vast crypt. But that's about it. If he permits Bessent, Scott, two-faced J.D. Vance with his contortions about the spirituality of war or any of their ilk bust up his chance to make nice in Beijing, there goes the Trump political brand, up in smoke.

   So the Trump/Xi confab is stupendously significant, especially for Trump. But the Iran War gums up the works. Assuming the white house honcho truly understands this, and there are omens that he does, he would want to wind down hostilities pronto – something which, in fact, he's been trying to do for some time. Somebody should have told him this misbegotten war entailed fighting the Russia/China/Iran alliance – but even if they had, he likely would have proceeded with his arrant nonsense anyway, because no one among the nincompoops, featherbrains and cuckoo birds he's surrounded with had any appreciation of the depth, tenacity, intelligence and sterling commitment of the Eurasian union. Indeed, few of our educated elites appreciated it either, due to the pervasive vapidities of western media. So unlucky Trump rushed in where angels fear to tread, only to wake up later, horrified at what he had done and desperate to undo it. I don't say this much about things Trump, but in this case, we better hope he succeeds.

Eve Ottenberg

   Over the weekend, vice president J.D. Vance sojourned to Islamabad to negotiate an end to the Iran War. Given that the U.S. and Israel sabotaged the two previous negotiations with the Persian nation, Iran had good reason to be skeptical. It was correct. The U.S. diplomatic amateurs utterly failed to understand who has the upper hand in this imbroglio, namely Iran, and thus made shockingly unrealistic demands. Now we'll see whether Tehran's diplomats survive the usually fatal process of negotiating with Trump's team of jokers.

   After Vance called it quits and despite Trump's threats to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, which would tank the world economy pronto, and his vociferations against China supplying weapons to Iran (Hello? Where has he been for the past month? Napping? Who does he think has been unpacking literally dozens of planeloads of military equipment in Tehran? I can tell you it's not Santa Claus, unless he's moved to Beijing), Washington wants peace, because, suffice it to say, its little "in/out" war on Iran did not go as planned. By the second month of the Iran War, the U.S. had lost planes – a not insignificant number – while six Russian submarines patrolled the Strait of Hormuz, two of them nuclear.  On April 7, Russia and China vetoed a UN security council resolution to open the Strait, thus finally striking back at the Empire's security council abuses. This veto just might have had something to do with Donald "Stone Age" Trump's fulminations the day before about terminating Iranian civilization. After all, Russia, China and Iran are de facto allies, regardless of the fine print in their security pacts, and Moscow and Tehran have lately been on the receiving end of some of Washington's very bloody nastiness, while Beijing knows full well its number is up next.

   None of these contortions – bloviations about the stone age, lousy security council proposals targeting Iran or the sudden appearance of Russian submarines – were a recipe for global harmony leading to American success, if not renewed hegemony. No. With seven planes shot down over Iran, three pilots extracted, at least one seriously wounded, the IRGC hammering Israel and the Gulf sheikdoms, while literally champing at the bit for an American invasion, for which they'd been training for decades, the U.S. was ready to throw in the towel. American assets in the region were torched, while Hezbollah, the Houthis, the IRGC and Iraqi militias all shocked Washington and Jerusalem by turning out to be formidable opponents. Well, live and learn. Maybe next time the geniuses in the white house will listen to the Cassandras wailing "don't do it!" about attacking Iran. Like they should have listened during Trump's first term about exiting Tehran's nuclear pact, because oh, bye the way, there's a new ayatollah in town, since the U.S./Israeli nitwits assassinated the old one, and he wants nukes.

   On April 5 came news that approximately 100 U.S. special forces were stranded inside Iran "after both MC-130 extraction aircraft suffered mechanical failures and would not take off, per Reuters," reported the HormuzLetter on X. "The mission entered Iran to extract the downed F-15 WSO, identified as a colonel, who evaded for 48 hours with a sprained ankle in a hilltop crevice. The U.S. jammed electronics and struck key roads around the site to prevent anyone from getting close." And if you believe this American "save the pilot" song and dance, don't forget the tooth fairy. What should you believe? Let me make a suggestion: the U.S. was very possibly attempting to filch enriched uranium from Natanz, which would explain the very large number of rescuers and their proximity to Natanz and Isfahan. But don't take my word for it. It was all over the freakin' internet. Read military expert Will Schryver on X April 6 or another military expert, Armchair Warlord on X April 5.

   Bolstering the uranium treasure hunt theory was the sheer size of the so-called rescue effort. As RT reported April 6, "it involved an immense armada of 155 U.S. aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighter jets, 48 refueling tankers and 13 specialized aircraft. The operation also involved hundreds of special operations troops, including Navy SEAL Team 6 commandos…the U.S. suffered significant material losses. At least two transport planes became disabled at a remote Iranian airbase…and were deliberately destroyed by U.S. commanders…Two Black Hawk helicopters were reportedly struck by Iranian fire and an A-10 Warthog attack plane was hit but managed to limp back to Kuwaiti airspace where its crew ejected." Overall, the mission was not, ahem, a stunning success, if saving this pilot was even the mission's main objective rather than snatching Iranian uranium – because why else send in "hundreds" of special ops troops? For one pilot? I don't think so. Trump had announced he was going after the uranium, and I think that's what he tried to do.

   Meanwhile, RT also reported April 4 that two U.S. planes, an F-15E fighter and an A-10 attack plane, were both shot down by Iran April 3. "The losses occurred less than 48 hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Iran has 'no anti-aircraft equipment.'" Well, uh, apparently it does, 'cause how else is it shooting down U.S. planes? In addition to these two planes, Iran claimed "they downed five drones and missiles." Sounds to me like Iranian air defenses are in good working order, no matter what clueless el jefe in the white house believes. As all this was going on, "Iran claimed to have destroyed a C-130 military transport plane and two Black Hawk helicopters." Boy, that non-existent air defense sure is a doozy.

   Before April 3, the U.S. already lost jets. There were the supposedly friendly fire shoot-downs March 1 of three F-15E Strike Eagles over Kuwait. Friendly fire? Ho! Ho! More like irascible Kuwaiti pilots or armed Iranian drones. Then, two KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft had a midair collision over Iraq March 12. One crashed, killing all six crew members. "On March 19," RT reports, "a U.S. F-35 fighter jet was hit by Iranian ground fire…The pilot, who suffered shrapnel wounds, managed to land the aircraft at a U.S. airbase." Then on March 27, Iranians destroyed an E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control aircraft at a Saudi Arabia airbase. These planes cost up to $500 million. The one struck literally split in two. So the price-tag for this imbecilic war, due to lost military hardware, is big, and that's not even counting the cost of the world's economy circling the drain.

   The rescue of the stranded airman got some play in American media, though you may be sure the chance that the massive deformity mounted to "extract" him was actually part of a mangled attempt to make off with Iran's enriched uranium – that got zero attention. After all, as the New York Times reported back on March 14, FCC chair, Brendan Carr threatened to revoke broadcasters' licenses over Iran War coverage. Carr decried liberal bias in broadcasts and accused broadcasters of "running hoaxes and news distortions." So nobody in corporate media was taking any chances on a steal-Iran's-uranium-mess-up story.

   To boost this bogus claim about hoaxes, "Carr shared a Truth Social post by president Trump that criticized the news media for its coverage of the war with Iran. Mr. Trump referred to a story, published by the Wall Street Journal that reported five American refueling planes had been struck in Saudi Arabia, claiming its headline was 'intentionally misleading.' He accused the news media of wanting the United States to lose the war." Well, what if it does? Hello? Who's got the high moral ground here? The government that launched an unprovoked war of choice on a peaceful nation of 92 million people and promptly commenced committing war crimes, bombing a girls' school and universities, or those citizens who would like to see this nauseating enterprise fail? And who says the news media needs to lie? That the U.S. and its proxy attack dog Israel are committing atrocities is unquestionable.

   Corporate media have likely been cowed by threats from Carr and Trump, so while they'll cover daring rescues of American airmen, bungling efforts to seize Iran's uranium is a reportorial no, no. Never underestimate the chilling effect of the white house's menacing bombast. Besides that, mainstream journalists have a sixth sense for exactly what's acceptable to their masters and anything exceedingly embarrassing to the American military sets off alarm bells.

   And just in case they needed any encouragement, they got it on April 6, when Trump threatened to jail the journalist he called "a sick person," over the Iran rescue raid leak. "We're going to go the media company that released [the information about the search in Iran for the pilot] and we're going to say 'National security, give it up [the source] or go to jail. The person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn't say.' It became a much more difficult operation because a leaker leaked. All of a sudden, the entire country of Iran knew that there was a pilot that was somewhere on their land that was fighting for his life."

   All this unpleasantness could of course have been avoided had Trump, in his first term, not yanked the U.S. out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, i.e. Obama's nuclear pact with Iran. It evidently offended Trump that anyone else, particularly Obama, whom he loathed, had negotiated a successful deal with Iran, and he claimed he'd get a better one. Well, a decade on and that hasn't happened. Instead, we've got a disaster with Iran that is destroying our vassals in the region, to say nothing of the world economy, to say nothing of thousands of innocent Iranians.

   In truth, the JPCOA was one of the very few decent things Barak "Assassinator in Chief and Don't Forget to Evict the Homeowners" Obama did. So it's doubly lamentable that Trump trashed the JPCOA, and frankly, I find it incomprehensible, since it led in a blindingly clear path straight to the current catastrophe. Sometimes it's better to leave well enough alone – no matter how much you hate your predecessor.

Eve Ottenberg

   Israel is losing on all fronts. And it's not just multiple Merkava tanks incinerated by Hezbollah or Tel Aviv high-rises pulverized by Iranian missiles. In the days before April 1, Israel lost the governments of Spain, France and Italy. And it ain't doin' too well with the U.K., either. In a word, Jerusalem lost Europe, except maybe for that one historically guilt-convulsed holdout – Germany. France forbade Israeli use of its airspace to transfer U.S. weapons for the Iran War; whereupon, tit for tat as it cut off its nose to spite its face, Israel halted defense spending with France.

   Meanwhile, back on March 11, Spain permanently withdrew its ambassador to Israel over Spanish opposition to the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, then at the end of March Spain blasted the new Israeli law allowing the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners, while Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez also accused Israel of trying to turn Lebanon into the titanic wreck it produced in Gaza; Spain also continues its large-scale arms embargo, so no technology, military equipment or weapons get sold to Israel, while its ports remain closed to ships carrying weapons to Israel. Lastly, Spain won't permit U.S.-Israel military efforts aimed at Iran to use Spanish military bases or airspace. So Spain, as far as Israel is concerned, is in the doghouse. Not that Spain could care less.

   Then on March 30, far-right Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni announced: "I accuse Israel of crossing the red line. I CONDEMN the massacre of Palestinian civilians and I announce that Italy will support European sanctions against Israel." By the way, if you think Meloni is a leftist, you need your head examined. If you think she's a soft, fuzzy humanitarian, you've got another thing coming. For her to get upset about Israeli abuse of Palestinians means it's ten times worse than whatever you could imagine.

   So when will those European Union sanctions against Israel come? The whole world waits for the other shoe to drop, but unfortunately that shoe is in Washington, and Berlin on the Potomac will never greenlight sanctions on its proxy attack dog in the Middle East. Still, the sanctions could come because the people of European countries have long condemned Israel for its genocide in Gaza. And when the governments chime in, that's a change. Spain is less surprising than France or Italy; it has long criticized Israel for its war crimes and overall barbarity. But Meloni? Who saw that coming? And as for Emmanual Macron, he's usually so busy checking which way the wind blows, that waiting for him to condemn a genocidal state felt like waiting for Godot.

   But even Macron finally got fed up. He and Meloni reached the end of their ropes with Israel, and Israel struck back. "Israel's Defense Ministry has announced retaliatory steps against France after U.S. president Donald Trump openly criticized [France] for refusing to allow access to its airspace for arms shipments being delivered to the Middle East," RT reported April 1. Trump called the Franch move "very unhelpful" and warned that the U.S. "will remember" it. Israeli defense mucky mucks termed France a nation that Israel does not consider "friendly." At the rate this is going that list of nations unfriendly to Israel will include the whole world except for the hyper-capitalist terror state headquartered in Washington. What can Jerusalem do to rectify this, assuming it cares to? End the Gaza genocide by letting in food and stopping slaughtering civilians, stop bombing Lebanon, withdraw from the West Bank and leave Iran the hell alone.

   Granted, things have been going downhill between France and Israel for some time. Last year, Macron recognized the state of Palestine, and he introduced an arms embargo on Israel in 2024. "Israeli defense firms have also been barred from showcasing products at French arms exhibitions," RT noted. Nonetheless, Macron's government extended a few olive branches to Israel lately, which snubbed them all. The Iran War, which Paris wants to distance itself from, only made things pricklier.

   Meanwhile, the EU urges decreased travel overall, as Iran energy cuts bite. Clearly European nations are not happy with this war, and Israel sports a big bullseye for their wrath. Indeed, on April 1, AP reported a "huge spike in oil prices…about a 70 percent price hike for gas and 60 percent for oil in Europe. Since the start of the war, the EU's bill for imported fossil fuels has jumped by 14 billion euros." On the same day, PBS headlined an article: "Oil and gas prices won't immediately return to normal even if the Iran War ends, EU warns." One EU bigwig admonished that "we will not go back to normal in the foreseeable future."

   The same headache afflicts the Trump imbeciles, because gas prices in the U.S. have jumped over $4 per gallon and are set to shoot through the roof, possibly hitting $5 or $6 per gallon in the near future, if Trump's wildly unpopular and stupendously stupid, unprovoked Iran War doesn't end. In short, there's little public tolerance for the nasty effects of attacking Iran, in the U.S. or the EU – where the chance of sanctions on Israel, a key instigator of this idiotic war, has been quite publicly discussed. The EU HAS already imposed sanctions on settlers for their pogroms in the West Bank and is apparently open to sanctioning far-right Israeli ministers – the sickening Bezalel Smotrich and Ben Gvir, whose repulsive policies are in the EU's crosshairs.

   On April 1, the EU Observer's headline asked, "Will the EU finally sanction Israel after the death penalty bill?" This bill, one of the most nauseating of the modern era, would enable Israel to execute Palestinian children for throwing stones; such a law alone places Israel outside the circle of civilized nations and condemns it of the most egregious barbarism – as if it didn't already stand convicted of that due to its genocide in Gaza. This is just one more nail in the coffin of Israel's supposed status as a civilized nation. This law is revolting, and the fact that it "could damage" relations with the EU is pitifully insufficient. It should sever them, unless the EU wants the taint of blood-stained guilt by association with a state's execution of children.

   For those in la la land, namely the Trump white house, well, they couldn't care less. The fact that el jefe supports a government that just legalized murdering children for stone throwing means less than nothing in their empty skulls. Which, of course, tells you everything you need to know about the Israeli-American Fourth Reich, to wit, that it lives up to its moniker. But the white house is too preoccupied with its moronic Iran War to notice that the abuses embodied in Israeli legalization of crimes against Palestinians just shot into the stratosphere.

   How preoccupied? Well, those of us who live in what Fidel Castro once called the heart of the enemy recently got news that we will apparently introduce ground troops into Iran, which sounds like a suicide mission, since the IRGC has been training for precisely this – an American invasion of their Europe-sized country, with its many mountain ranges and 92 million loyal inhabitants – for decades. Will our proxy Israel assist with this doomed endeavor? No. Jerusalem knows a loser when it sees one and besides, has enough problems getting hammered by daily barrages of Iranian and Hezbollah missiles, against which it no longer has any air defense. So Trump rides to the OK corral alone. This after a Black Hawk helicopter had to flee Iran April 3, and news came of shootdowns of multiple U.S. fighter jets, some of them possibly even our top-of-the-line boondoggle nonpareil stealth bombers, while American pilots who ejected, sought by Iranian police, had to scramble to safety. So no, overall, prospects for this invasive enterprise do not look good.

   What, you may ask, has the Empire and its proxy, Israel, got us into? A catastrophic war or a catastrophic war with a global economic collapse – you pick. And as the excellent Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy noted in a recent interview with Owen Jones, when things really go south, and Washington loses the Iran War, who do you think will get blamed? Well, Donald Trump will make sure it's not him. So that leaves Israel – already a pariah state with most of the world's population for its disgusting treatment of Palestinians generally and its genocide of Gaza in particular; recently shunned by several powerful European governments; a possible target of E.U. sanctions, and believe me, those sanctions will come when Trump decides to save his neck by pointing a finger at Israel. As Levy said – Israel will get blamed. So that's the end of Israel's allies – Europe and the U.S.

   Because Eurasia and the Global South already want nothing to do with Israel. In fact, according to the very knowledgeable commentator, Andrei Martyanov in an April 2 interview with Sharmine Narwani, Israel's behavior, like the U.S.'s, was deemed so atrocious that Russia privately warned both nations it would not tolerate a nuclear assault on Iran. Once the war is over, Russia may decide it has to get along with the U.S. But Israel? Not so much. Amirite?

Eve Ottenberg

   If there's one thing the Iran War has taught us – with its terrifyingly destructive hypersonic missiles, its record-time eviction of the U.S. from the Gulf and torching of all U.S. bases – it's that a war with China would be ten times worse. Because who do you think supplied Tehran with all that scarifying military hardware and the unbeatable Beidou satellite data on U.S. bases and troops? Beijing, that's who. Even though on March 28, China halted its ships exiting Hormuz. Did the Iranians warn them that things were about to go south in a big way or did the U.S. make China an offer it couldn't refuse, i.e. avoid Hormuz or we zap your tankers? How long will Beijing tolerate this? The Chinese could begin strangling rare earths to the U.S. at any moment. Then keep your ears open as U.S. weapons producers scream.

   Besides, how, exactly, would a U.S. assault on China go down? I'll tell you in two words: It wouldn't. Our vaunted aircraft carriers, which couldn't get close to Iran's coasts and still got hit, would have to lurk even further away from China, and even then, they'd still be sitting ducks. One of them suffered from a supposed laundry fire as it "approached" Iran; well, "approaching" China that would be a laundry fire tornado. So our multi-billion-dollar aircraft carriers would be sidelined – unless we wanted them destroyed. Which raises the question – how would we get close enough to the Chinese coast to attack it? All evidence suggests this would be much more difficult than zeroing in on Iran's coast – and we couldn't even do that.

   So maybe we'll use our famous stealth technology? Ho, ho! As China Pulse recently posted on X: "Goodbye to American air superiority. Chinese defense company Jingan Technology announced that its system intercepted radio signals emitted by a U.S. Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber over Iran…Jingan's system successfully captured radio signals emitted by the aircraft as it returned from a mission in Iran." This was before the news that Iran shot down several F-35s – the biggest stealth bomber boondoggle of all time. If Iran can "see" F-35s and China can "see" B-2s, the supposed stealth advantage of these weapons dissolves, though I must say any advantage to the F-35 was always opaque to me, what with its multiple takeoff and landing accidents and its finicky need for constant stroking and care.

   Meanwhile there's the American weapons production problem. Unlike the Five-Thousand-Year-Old-Civilization, we here in the U.S. don't actually produce much anymore. Oh, we create financial instruments, but not much actual stuff, due to our thoroughly financialized version of late capitalism – unlike China's industrial capitalism. What does this mean for war? Happily, that the U.S. can't really wage it. At least not as effectively as the generally pacific Eurasian behemoths.

   Because unlike China, our weapons production system doesn't operate 24/7. We have arms manufacturers sure, but they're not on the same sked as the ones in China. And then there are the rare earths and Beijing's near monopoly of them. The U.S. can't make weapons without rare earths. But it gets them all from…drumroll, where? You guessed it – China. And what do you think happens to that supply of rare earths if Washington attacks Beijing? It dries up instantly, as it did when Trump threatened tariffs – causing him to back off tout de suite. So the U.S. depends on China for its weapons – not a good arrangement for a hyper-capitalist terror state, because it's essentially planning to bite the hand that feeds it. When it bites, that food will just…stop.

   So the smart money would be on the U.S. ditching its plans to attack China over Taiwan and focusing instead on bullying tiny countries like Cuba in its backyard. Since it's already shown it can't beat Iran. But Cuba – yep, that's where the smart money is; or so you'd think, but you would be wrong. Not that Donald "Blockade Barbarian" Trump intends to leave the Cuban commies alone – oh, no way. But that's not the martial focus of the imperial people who really count. "Iran Is Real, But Defense Techies Still Prefer War Gaming China" reads a Responsible Statecraft headline March 27. If your response to that isn't "uh-oh," then all I've got to say is there is something wrong with you.

   From a recent forum, "one can't help but conclude that Silicon Valley's founders are far more comfortable wargaming a confrontation with China than tying their mission to an actual hot war in the Middle East that has a rising death toll and no clear exit strategy." Some attendees claimed the Iran Was "was just a distraction from American's main adversary: China. As one weapons company founder said: 'If the U.S. is sending its munitions stockpile to the Middle East that undercuts deterrence in the Pacific.'"

   The view from la la land, i.e. the Trump white house, is different. There, the Washington Post reported March 16, the Trump-Xi Jinping summit got postponed because el jefe wants Xi to help open Hormuz. Ain't gonna happen. Who does Trump think gives Tehran the satellite data on U.S. troops and bases, data that effectively helps Iran keeps the Strait closed? Duh, China. And whose ships does the great mind in the Oval Office think are allowed to pass through the Strait while western ones aren't? Uh, Chinese and Russian ships – oh and vessels of any country that expels the Israeli and U.S. ambassadors. And if Washington, won't let those ships pass, I predict turbulence ahead for the Empire. Meanwhile, white house megabrains have delayed Trump's trip to China to pressure Beijing to send warships to help the U.S. reopen the Strait. Well, be sure to send me a memo on how that is going. Beijing, I bet, was very impressed by this delay (not). Incidentally, Beijing – unlike the white house – "had not publicly confirmed the March 31-April 2 visit." Ouch.

   Then airhead commerce secretary Scott Bessent took to the airwaves to clarify that this delay is not due to Trump insisting "China police the Strait of Hormuz." One Wendy Cutler, former U.S. trade negotiator told us, "this evolution in explanations seems to be an effort to lessen tensions with Beijing by providing a more generic non-China-focused reason for any postponement." Anything you say, Wendy, but from my perch in the peanut gallery it looks like Don Corleone in the white house still smarts from attempts to slap tariffs on the Five-Thousand-Year-Old Civilization, which because of its rare earth monopoly proved to be tariff-proof.

   According to Sino-expert Brian Berletic on X March 13, the actual U.S. objective regarding Iran maybe "can't be said out loud (destroying the global economy, hoping to kill off China, while only weakening the U.S. in the process)." This would fit with strangling Beijing's oil lifeline from Caracas, though whether it amounts to a coherent, unified policy is doubtful. But Berletic sez otherwise: "The whole point of the U.S. invading Venezuela, attacking Iran, strangling China technologically for years is to strangle China completely." But "even with a U.S.-imposed blockade in place, China is likely to achieve energy independence in 5-10 years albeit at much greater cost – at which point the U.S. will have lost its remaining leverage over China."

   Who exactly is the villain here? Well, it's NOT the country that donated 15600 tons of rice to Cuba during a barbaric U.S.-imposed blockade that is killing infants in hospital NICUs; that country was China. The monster here is the country that initiated an unprovoked, stupendously stupid war on Iran, whose purpose, again per Berletic on March 27 "is toppling Iran and stopping the flow of energy from Iran and the rest of the region to China."

   Will the gaggle of Trump imbeciles succeed in throttling that flow of energy to Beijing? Doubtful. Because even if they interdict vessels headed to China in the Strait…there's always Russian oil and gas. So if the Trump gangsters can't block energy to China, will they at long last do what Washington has been threatening since maybe the Obama administration and its pivot to Asia, with an eye to a military assault? Well, let's see how their attack on Iran goes. Last I checked, it was a big loser, with Eurasian behemoths China and Russia assisting Iran, which now wants nukes, and with North Korea offering to open its arsenal to Tehran, and you know what that includes – nukes.

   So Trump's idiotic Iran War looks like a flop. And if Washington can't beat Tehran, please, pray tell, how will it arm-wrestle bigger, stronger, scarier Beijing into submission?

 

Eve Ottenberg

   Five headlines from the week of March 22 are all about missiles. "Iranian Strikes Cripple Qatar's LNG Hub, Threaten Europe Gas" was one on X. Another, from the Middle East Eye, cited Iran's attacks on Israel's Dimona nuclear site, noting that dozens were wounded. Another X headline focused on Iran's missiles reaching Diego Garcia "in Longest Strike Yet." RT featured a story on "US Patriot missile linked to civilian injuries in Bahrain," while on X itself a story ran, quoting Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of the Russian Security Council: "Iran possesses an offensive missile system that the United States does not have," Shoigu allegedly announced. "These are highly advanced missiles that have not yet been used. Iran has a stockpile of missiles capable of destroying the entire Middle East, not just Israel. We call on the United States and Israel to immediately stop the war and declare the military operation against Iran a failure. Otherwise, the losses and damage will be a surprise. That is all." In other words, if this post was accurate and not a fake, Russia warns that the Empire cannot beat the Eurasian block's hypersonic missiles and better call it a day.

   The next afternoon Russia TV ran a list of over 17 nations that stand with Iran. The message is clear: Russia (and China) regard Iran as an ally – so does North Korea, which offered to open its arsenal to Iran over a week ago, and you know what that arsenal contains – nukes. Also, Iran is considering joining a defense pact with Russia and China – does that mean it would shelter under their nuclear umbrella? Stay tuned, because it's definitely possible.

    Of course, Iran may sagaciously move to have its own nukes in the near future – the new ayatollah put the Empire on notice regarding that in his March 21 speech. Apparently, as predicted by many observers, including yours truly, the new Iranian leadership considers the old one's abstention from a nuclear deterrent to have been erroneous. This is no surprise. Ayatollah Khamenei was a moderate who issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons. He was killed and has been replaced by his son, whose family was also killed by the American-Israeli Fourth Reich, and who, guess what? is no moderate. I ask you – if your family was wiped out by the U.S. and Israel, would you be a moderate? No. And the new ayatollah wants the bomb, doubtless recognizing the stupendous logic that had Iran had nuclear weapons, the U.S. and Israel would not have dared attack it. He will now rectify that situation.

   Meanwhile on March 18 and 19, Iranian missiles struck "two LNG trains and a gas-to-liquids plant at Quatar's Ras Laffan complex, sidelining 12.8 million tons of annual output and forcing a $20 billion write-down," according to X March 22. These attacks retaliated for Israeli bombing of Iran's South Pars field, a deliberate escalation of the Iran War and one that supposedly took the Trump regime by surprise. Whatever the truth about this surprise, Israel appeared determined to expand the conflict. After Iran's counterattack, Qatar, in a move no doubt delightful to Israel, expelled Iranian attaches, while declaring force majeure on contracts to Europe, South Korea and China. But Israel has no doubt finally awoken to the unwelcome realization that it is in an existential fight, one it rashly picked, and this time, unlike the 12-Day War, no amount of begging by Jerusalem will get hostilities halted. Indeed, as the IRGC insists, nothing short of Jerusalem's unconditional surrender will stop Iranian missiles from hitting Israel.

   So Israel is desperate. How desperate? Well, on March 23, General H.R. McMaster told the world on live CBS TV that the IDF now hits Russian ships in the Caspian Sea. I can't imagine Vladimir Putin standing very long for much of this. Jerusalem is clearly making a provocative hullaballoo over Moscow's support for Tehran – a mosquito annoying an elephant. And my bet is the Kremlin will swat that mosquito in short order. McMaster also revealed that to aid Israel, the U.S. blocks Chinese fuel shipments to Iran. Ho, ho! We'll see how long this brazen piracy against the tariff-proof Five-Thousand-Year-Old civilization lasts.

   Then we have lousy U.S. air defense doing its typical crappy job of not working and killing and harming innocent bystanders. On March 23, RT reported that a U.S. Patriot missile was "linked to civilian injuries in Bahrain. The mid-air interception of an Iranian drone led to 32 people being wounded early in the conflict." According to Reuters, the Patriot interceptor "was launched from a battery located approximately four miles southwest of the Mahazza neighborhood on Sitra Island. Bahrain's authorities previously said 32 people, including children, were wounded." This fits with much wretched experience of Patriots in Ukraine: missing the drones they're meant to shoot down and blowing up or landing on civilians and civilian infrastructure instead.

   But Iranian missiles are doing their job. Meanwhile Iran is making money hand over fist in the oil business. How much money? Well, check out what Iran expert Trita Parsi had to say on X March 23: "Before the war Iran produced just shy of 1.1 million barrels of oil per day and sold it at $65 per barrel minus $18 discount (i.e. $47). Today it produces 1.5 million barrels a day and sells it at $110 with only $2-4 discount. And this does not include petrochemical sales that not only have increased but are now being sold to a larger set of customers compared to before the war. Moreover, Iran is receiving payments through new mechanisms that bypass the UAE, which were set up after the June war. In essence…Trump and Israel's war has ended up delivering Iran de facto sanctions relief. This means that Iran is all the less incentivized to end the war, unless the agreement provides Iran with formal sanctions relief."

   Sanctions aren't the only thing Iran stipulates. In addition to nukes, Iran, as mentioned, wants unconditional Israeli surrender, reparations and the total exit of the U.S. from the Gulf. That exit is already well underway. As of March 24, the last U.S. and NATO troops had fled Iraq, while American bases throughout the region have gone up in flames. The Empire made a big boo boo with its Israel uber alles assault. Unlike the Eurasian behemoths, it cannot produce weapons 24/7 day in and day out and is even utterly dependent on China for the rare earths to make those arms. And China is ready, if provoked, to turn off its rare earth monopoly spigot at the drop of a hat. So the Fourth Reich lacked materiel going into this war. Washington and Jerusalem were also outgunned by hypersonic missiles they have no defense for and which they do not know how to produce. Had anyone in those two capitals had a brain, they would have resisted the urge to attack. But they weren't thinking with their brains, if they could be said to have them or to have been thinking at all.

   So now the missiles fly. Iran gets rich. The security architecture of West Asia has transformed permanently. The idiots in Jerusalem have punctured the illusion of their nation as a regional power and will be lucky if it gets through the Iranian and Hezbollah blitz with its territory intact. This is what happens when, instead of statesmen running countries, you have third-rate car salesmen, like Benjamin Netanyahu. Or in the case of Trump, snake oil salesmen. I would not want to bet on the nitwit Israeli/American rulers resisting the insane urge to resort to a tactical nuke, however, that won't save the situation for these morons, as it could well lead to nuclear retaliation. You don't have to be a genius to see these two nations have dragged humanity to the precipice of Atomic Armageddon. If you can figure out a way to drag it back, you get a prize.

 

Eve Ottenberg

   It may be pointless to keep repeating that the U.S. attack on Iran was inane, but let me mention this: the U.S. attack on Iran was idiotic.

   As British politician and commentator George Galloway posted on X March 9: "The U.S.-Israel attack on Iran is the greatest military-political disaster since Operation Barbarossa – the Nazi invasion of the USSR." Yes indeed it is, as any normal person in their right mind could have seen coming decades ago. Iran has made clear it will only accept Israel's unconditional surrender and the complete eviction of the U.S. and U.S. military from the region, two titanic developments that were, prior to this insane adventure, unthinkable. Well, they're no longer unthinkable. With Tel Aviv and Haifa incinerated and bombed to smithereens, ALL Americans advised to quit the Gulf forthwith and the hospitals at Ramstein military base in Germany awash in the blood of hundreds of dead and wounded American soldiers, it's not a moment too soon to ask whether the psychotics running Israel, confronted with an existential threat, would resort to a tactical nuke. I think the answer is yes. And that's where two things come into play: first, the extent of damage at the Israeli nuclear site, Dimona, and second, China and Russia. Let's start with China and Russia. Because this is the moment when it becomes very important for nuclear armed Moscow and Beijing to step in and put an end to this lethal lunacy.

   Pakistan offered nukes to Iran, should Israel threaten it with atomic Armageddon, back during the 12 Day War. Things have changed since then. They got worse. Not just the deranged Israeli rulers, but also Washington under Trump may itch for an atomic final solution rather than cleanly losing a war and losing face. Russia and China, as historian Tarik Cyril Amar posted on X, must enter the chat, with their own nukes, to stop this pathology before the insane asylum inmates, who happen to run much of the world, decide to irradiate it. Russia and China are the only ones who can – and they have good reason to do so. Iran is an ally. Moscow has assisted its Persian friend with targeting of U.S. troops and bases, while Beijing has given Tehran scads of satellite intelligence on U.S. bases. Furthermore, Russia announced in early March that it supports Iran in this fight. Days later, Kremlin foreign minister Sergei Lavrov blasted Gulf potentates as the cowards they are regarding the U.S. In short, the Kremlin boldly took a side; and it wasn't the psychopathic Empire's. So did Beijing, with its dozens of military cargo planes landing in Tehran and unloading who knows how much weaponry and air defense. And then, on March 12, Eurasian ally North Korea announced that it had opened its ENTIRE arsenal to Iran, and you know what that arsenal includes – a nuclear trump card.

   Next up: the apocalyptic damage at Dimona. One thing we learned in the Ukraine War is that Russian statistics are unassailable. Well, the Russian stats, released March 9, coming out of the Iran War, are devastating to Israel: In the first 72 hours of the war, Israel lost 700 military, intel and nuclear experts. This is a shocking kill list, and there's no reason to doubt Moscow's info. At this rate – because who knows how many more such people Israel has lost since – Jerusalem might wanna consider an unconditional surrender. Why? Well, according to Russian intelligence, one for instance: Israel has completely lost control of Dimona, its most essential nuclear site and the key to its supposedly nonexistent nuclear arsenal. If this is accurate and Israel now lacks its atomic insurance policy, we don't need to worry about Jerusalem deploying a tactical nuke. But Washington could still be a problem. Presumably, Moscow and Beijing, both armed to the teeth with atomic weapons, can make the would-be Beltway Bombers see reason.

   Meanwhile, Iran has rejected several ceasefire offers from Trump. Why? Because it doesn't want a repeat of what followed the 12 Day War. Tehran knows very well that a truce would just be a break during which the Israeli-American Fourth Reich would simply rearm for another assault. Tehran wants to deal with the problem once and for all, and that means now. Though it has nearly exhausted U.S. and Israeli air defense interceptors, Iran is just warming up with its ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Estimates were that in the 12 Day War, Iran burned through 20 percent of those missiles; it rebuilt and imported from its Russian and Chines allies more than enough to compensate for that 20 percent. So now it's firing hypersonics, for which we in the west and thus Israel have zero, zip, nada, zilch defense. And of course, we ourselves completely lack hypersonics and have been unable to develop them. You'd think smart pentagon leadership would have avoided confrontation with a regional power bristling with weapons we can't match and able to shut of the world's energy spigot at the drop of a hat; you'd think that, but you'd be wrong.

   Because just like they warned, Iran's military men shut the Strait of Hormuz. For the first time in living memory 20 percent of the world's oil and 30 percent of its LNG is bottled up in that waterway. The price of oil is shooting up, the stock market drops, and Americans can soon expect to pay $5 per gallon at the pump. This was an entirely preventable catastrophe. How? I'll tell you how: just don't freakin' declare war on Iran. Was that too much to ask of the megabrains in the white house? Apparently yes. Cause they did it. They risked the entire world economy on an idiotic assault on a country the size of Europe, protected by numerous mountain ranges, with 92 million people and enough hypersonic missiles to obliterate Israel and the Gulf states. This is stupid on steroids.

   Late on March 9, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced: "Any Arab or European country that expels the Israeli and American ambassadors from its territory will be granted full authorization and freedom of passage through the Strait of Hormuz starting tomorrow." This offer came in response to imbecilic white house threats about opening the Strait of Hormuz. The arsonist in the white house had made noises about U.S. navy ships accompanying tankers, suggesting this naval suicide amid complaints about the Strait's closure. Well, the IRGC's response was not conciliatory. It was cantankerous.

   No wonder the U.S. and Israel are "studying the possibility" of ending the Iran War without regime change in Iran. That amounts to declaring victory and running away, but hey, it works for me. This whole fiasco, from the moment it debuted on the world stage decades ago out of the revolting mouth of Benjamin Netanyahu, was enough to make you want to puke – and keep puking till it actually happened, the anti-nausea meds kicked in, and you could stop paying attention to the news. Because if there's one thing the U.S. war on Iran does is it proves the terminally nauseating idiocy of the American ruling class. Nitwits are in charge. Nitwits and psychopaths, and these mentally imbalanced people have guns and bombs and loads of money; but at last you can take some satisfaction – they bit off more than they can chew. They picked on someone who can fight back and destroy them financially. Someone who has big, scary allies, allies who are unimpressed with the bluster of white house dimwits; someone whose power is measured in unbeatable hypersonic missiles and impenetrable air defense. Russia has the best AD in the world. It's battle-tested and it doesn't miss. You can bet your paycheck that now Iran's got some of that too.

   The IRGC has made its goals clear: unconditional Israeli surrender, eviction of the U.S. from the Middle East. Russia and China back Iran and you don't want to underestimate the lengths they'll go to to support their ally. So as Berlin on the Potomac's jig ends in the Middle East, who benefits? The Lebanese, the Gazans, the Houthis, Hezbollah (much more powerful than the demented Israeli-American tyranny estimated), Palestinians in the West Bank, Iraqi Shia and indeed Shia everywhere. It's a horror and a tragedy that some many Iranians had to die, but at least if the IRGC attains its goals, there might be some justice for the dead.