COMMENT: Marty, you were the first to point to Netanyahu was a neocon and they were using him to infiltrate the White House last year. You seem to be put in the middle of everything all the time. I had no idea Netanyahu went to school in Philadelphia, and that’s how you knew. Then you knew the Kristols. You know Europe well and have commented on how there has been a huge increase in anti-Americanism here, and you also warned that there would be a rise in antisemitism. It is questionable who is hated most here, Trump or Netanyahu. Everything has played out as Socrates has projected.
Al
REPLY: This is all Netanyahu’s scheme, along with the American Neocons. Rubio, who is a Cuban, is now trying to cause regime change in Cuba. These people will never stop interfering in other countries. I will do an update on the private blog. This on the one hand is going well for them, as they may have devastated the Iranian military, but there appears to be no regime change for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC is held together by religion, and this is playing right into the prophecies. The Israeli decapitation strategy of leadership is not weakening the government at this stage; it has stiffened its resolve. The Ayatollah has rejected a ceasefire. He has to know that Trump is on a short leash, and the longer this goes on, the worse it will be for him and in the midterms. The latest polls show he is -27 points just with independents. They never fogave Bush Sr for raising taxes after he said read my lips, no new taxes. Trump swore no more neocon endless wars.
The Japanese kamikaze Pilots were told to fly into American ships. They believed that the emperor was god so you do as god tells you. In the Middle East, individuals who carry out suicide bombings generally do not believe they are committing suicide, which is strictly forbidden in Islam. Instead, they believe they are performing an act of martyrdom (istishhād), a sacred duty of self-sacrifice in the path of God (fi sabil Allah) that promises great rewards in the afterlife. It is crucial to understand that this interpretation is highly contested and rejected by the vast majority of mainstream Muslim scholars and communities worldwide. It is essential to understand that the beliefs described above are based on interpretations of Islamic texts that are overwhelmingly rejected by mainstream Islamic scholarship.
This is what the Neocons fail to understand. You CANNOT judge an enemy based on your beliefs. All that matters is what THEY believe – not you. They underestimated Iran and they assumed that they would simply mine the Straut of Hormuz. The decision making in the war leaves a lot to be questioned.
The Israeli military killed Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib, the latest in a series of high-profile killings of Iranian leaders that have worked to destabilize the nation’s institutions and industry as the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran intensifies. This has been their agenda to assassinate the leaders. They did that with Hammas, Hezbollah, Syra, Libya, and Iraq. This same strategy is now being deployed in Iran.
Here is the problem. So far Trump has not been attacking the Iranian regular army. Perhaps someone has learned a lesson from Iraq. You cannot simply destroy everything for then what comes at the end is sheer chaos. What is critical is that the main institutions are left intact for a post-war situation. Assuming the Islamic Republic collapses, the people need to have the infrastructure intact to form a normal government. If they leave Iran as the did Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Syria, etc., then the violence will only resurface from the chaos. There will be radical elements the surface just as ISIS in the aftermath of Iraq.
A rare written statement from Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, promised retaliation for the killing of the nation’s top security official, Ali Larijani, saying, “All blood has its price that the criminal murderers of the martyrs must pay soon.” Because the IRGC is hard core religious, this makes it impossible to see them take some sort of leadership role. The best we can hope for is someone from the regular army rises up, but that could also end up in civil war.
So far, Trump has avoided not just attacking the regular army, but the institutions that will be needed postwar. There is no intention to occupy Iran as took place in Iraq. Trump has also not destroyed the pipelines of Iran understanding that a postwar economy will need the oil exports to rebuild. The biggest crisis that I see is Netanyahu who seems to want genocide in Iran and the real risk here is that he can act in his own self-interest seeking to keep Trump engaged if not drag him in all the way with ground troops. My concern is that Trump is NOT fully in charge for Netanyahu cannot be counted on for honest intelligence any more than the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I knew Bill Kristol. He even spoke at one of our conference in the ’90s. If I remember correctly, he said taking out Iraq was to secure the future of Israel. He did write the book to justify that war.
In 2004, allegations surfaced that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program, which was allegedly forged by Netanyahu to justify invading Iran back then. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found NO credible evidence of such activities after 2003. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later claimed that Iran had lied about its nuclear ambitions, presenting documents in 2018 that he asserted were proof of a secret nuclear weapons program.
Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned on Tuesday in protest against the war on Iran. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,” Kent wrote. So, what, in his estimation, was the reason for this war? Simple: The Israelis wanted it, and they get what they want. Of course, the Trump Administration is doing everything it can to now discredit Kent. Iran may be more of an existential threat to Israel, but the Iranian threat to U.S. civilians, service personnel, and interests abroad is constant and has been since 1979. They have cleverly switched the iss that Iran did not present a threat to the United States. They are claiming it was a threat only to those stationed in the region. The point is that the ONLY way a president can act without a declaration of war from Congress is to respond to a immediate threat. This is always the excuse for they used that against Iraq that they had weapons on mass destruction and it was imminent that they would attack the USA.
In 2002, Netanyahu addressed the United States Congress, saying Israel is certain Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and that America ‘must do something about this.’ He also said the same about Iran. Netanyahu has been pitching this same story since 2002. This is his personal vendetta and it has cost America billions and approximately 4,492 U.S. servicemembers were killed during the Iraq War from 2003 to 2011. Additionally, around 32,292 were wounded in the conflict. All for Netanyahu’s vendetta. I had family members who fought in that war. They were not too happy when they found out it was all a lie. This is not even for Israel. This is for one man who has admitted he has sought the destruction of Iran for 40 years.
I like Vance, but I think he has an obligation to look at the facts. When Gabbard said Iran had no nuclear program, Trump said he had different intelligence and that was from Netanyahu. I think it is time to interrogate Netanyahu for he is also putting Israel at risk for his insane personal vendetta.
Let’s be real. Iran is believed to possess enough enriched uranium to potentially build a nuclear weapon if it chose to. But even if Iran suddenly produced a bomb, nuclear deterrence and the risk of massive retaliation from countries like the United States or Israel would likely prevent it from ever being used. They furthermore lack the ability to make a bomb much different from what was dropped on Japan, but lack the ability to deliver such a bomb. Yet Gabbard in her written submission to Congress admitted that the 2025 strike obliterated Iran’s nuclear program and that there was no effort to restart it. There was no imminent threat. May are starting to see this as a war for Netanyahu, not for the United States. This was an unprovoked action to fulfill Netanyahu’s 50 year dream of destroying Iran. That is the real danger here that he started this war for personal reasons and there is a risk that he will act unilaterally to prevent any short-term end to this war.
For Iran, the UAE is a prime location where strikes can simultaneously pressure Washington, hit the Switzerland of the Middle East, and disrupt global energy flows. Thanks to the regulations and Marxist agenda in the EU, capital has been fleeing to UAE. Attacking Dubai unsettles international finance and corporates, and generate worldwide attention. We had to move our people out of our Dubai office as well.
Iran can inflict maximum regional and global pain, testing UAE that has positioned itself as the Gulf’s safest bridge between East and West, and the future of the region for finance, logistics, aviation and technology. There are many foreigners living in Dubai.
While there is a shot that March will remain as the high in oil for right now and there could be up to a 2 to 3 month correction, this does not appear to be over and we can still see an escalation during the summer from June into September.
With NATO refusing to join Trump in Iran, there is now a reasonable risk that Trump will abandon Ukraine and let Europe fund that one.