Kathleen Tyson @Kathleen_Tyson_

33m

All today’s US attacks on Iran are coastal near Hormuz, nothing toward the capital Tehran or the west or hinterland.

It would be idiotic and fatal, but there may be a ‘boots on the ground’ attempt to take Hormuz in the offing after attacks on IRGC coastal locations.

Trump calls this a “very justified attack” and demands Iran not retaliate, threatening total civilisational annihilation again.

Too late. The missiles were launched before he hit Post.

Now, earlier today Trump said he saw no reason to nuke Iran since “we” are winning easily with conventional weapons. It was a studiedly ambiguous response to a question, IMO. This reference to “the biggest attack of the all” that would cause there to be “very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran” seems like another ambiguous statement or veiled nuclear threat. It won’t work. Trump is clearly feeling the heat of the approaching midterms, which is exactly what Iran intends.

Kathleen Tyson @Kathleen_Tyson_

1h

Two hours before the retaliation strikes last time.

Just over an hour before the missile barrage responded to Tomahawks fired from USN ships and HIMARS fired from Bahrain and Kuwait.

Danny (Dennis) Citrinowicz ,داني سيترينوفيتش @citrinowicz

6h

There is one important point in this important analysis by @HamidRezaAz that deserves greater emphasis: the speed of the Iranian response. It is another indication of how much has changed inside Iran since the killing of Ali Khamenei.

Bash @fieldtoaddname

Hmmm so Iran seems to have moved toward a more automatic, policy driven reaction rather than going through the national security council and then deciding on targets which would take quite some time

Seems quite likely they have a pre planned retaliation policy and targets

Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal

 These are the sites being named in today’s U.S. wave:

• Bandar Abbas: blasts reported, plus a U.S. official cited on strikes there

• Qeshm: several explosions in the local reports, including around Masan

• Chabahar: Iranian official said projectiles hit the city, along with Konarak

• Jask: in the same south-coast blast pile

• Sirik: same coastal roundup, thinner than the first 3

• Minab: on the map, still the softest confirmation of the 6

CENTCOM only said IRGC targets.

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

1h

BREAKING: The US military has begun striking IRGC targets all over Iran’s southern coast, including Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, Chabahar, Konarak, Jask, Sirik, and Minab, per CENTCOM.

The strikes are part of Trump’s new plan to restart the bombing campaign by waging strikes in the Strait of Hormuz, per two US officials.

Iran says heavy retaliation is coming in the coming hours.

.

BREAKING: Iran declares it will imminently respond to the US attacks against Iran tonight, with the response being “many times greater than the US attacks,” and that “American interests and bases in the region will quickly come under Iranian fire,” in the coming hours, per a senior Iranian military source to Tasnim.

The Iranian calculation—which I believe is correct—is that Trump lacks the military capability to keep up with Iran’s escalatory ability. Thus, Trump will find himself having achieved nothing but the further debilitation of US military preparedness—and the alienation and angering of the military establishment. Note, too, Iran’s reference to “American interests” and not just military bases. That’s a warning that escalation could get very extreme, since the American interests include huge high tech facilities.

Last week Trump engaged in more of his “the strait is open” nonsense, oil is gushing out, etc. He also added that the USN had cleared the strait of mines. Late in the week Iran attacked a tanker with cruise missiles, rather than the usual drones. Then, last night, the US attacked an IRGC position on a small island (Larak) in the strait, from which it was claimed the IRGC was preparing to launch Fajr-5 missiles. These missiles can deploy mines up to a distance of 100 kilometers. As Moon points out, at that range the mines could be deployed along the portion of the UAE coast that fronts on the Gulf of Oman, outside the strait. That would effectively shut down the US “southern” route.

Now, the US claims they fired on the IRGC position because the IRGC was preparing the missiles for launch. There is, however, another possibility. It is quite possible that the US became aware of what the IRGC was up to after several missiles had already been launched from the position. That seems plausible because this morning Iran announced that a tanker had struck two mines:

IRGC Navy: Rogue supertanker brought to complete halt after hitting sea mines in Strait of Hormuz

That effectively puts to rest any notion that Iran will somehow relax its claim to control over the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, yesterday we cited the WaPo article that quoted several top US commanders who have dissented from the current policy, maintaining instead that the current military posture with regard to Iran is “unsustainable.” Sooner or later, what can’t be sustained won’t be. Events of last night illustrate the problem. In addition to the shootdown of the 50th $30M MQ-9 drone over Hormuz, we learn:

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

9h

BREAKING: The US Army launched 96 to 160 PAC-3 MSE interceptors from its Patriot batteries in Jordan tonight against 32 to 40 Iranian ballistic missiles. Three to four rounds at each missile.

At ~$4 million a shot, that is $380-640 million burned in a single wave to keep two bases covered. A fully loaded battery holds 72-96 MSE on the rails. Two batteries plus a local reload is a few hundred rounds in-country, and tonight took a third to half of that.

Without a restock from the Gulf or US mainland, two or three more nights like this empty the Jordan magazines. If those batteries weren’t fully loaded going into the night, the ready pile is already gone this morning.

Each PAC-3 MSE takes about two years to build.

That seems unsustainable. Which calls into question, What was Trump’s plan here? Did he think that Iran would respond with only some minor retaliatory strike? He knows better now, but a major and disproportionate response was always to be expected. As his professional military—as opposed to Hegseth or other civilian advisers—could have told him. Trump is simply not going to be able to wait Iran out, and Iran has every reason and incentive to escalate, to make the wait very painful in the run-up to the midterms. Trump is clearly floundering. Here’s an Iranian view:

Patarames @Pataramesh

7h

Trump has no appitite for military vs. military confrontation

Hopes Iran is intimidated by threats like destroying civilian infrastructure on Kharg Island

Hopes Iran stops esclating/retaliating due to the counter-value pain he can inflict in theory

Now, the US claims that all the Iranian missiles were shot down. Danny Davis states that he doesn’t believe that claim passes the sniff test. Here’s the Iranian claim:

MenchOsint @MenchOsint

 IRGC Spokesperson provided a list of “Very Heavy Damages” suffered by the US military following Iranian Attacks over a 15-day period (from July 8th to July 21st),

• In the radar and air defense sector:

7 x Command and Control centers

3 x Satellite communication systems

6 x Patriot air defense radar systems

3 x air and sea control and monitoring radars

8 x early warning radar systems

7 x air-based missile defense radars

3 x FPS radar systems

2 x AN/FPS-117 radars

5 x Long-Range radars

2 x Air defense radars

1 x Tactical radar unit

• In the support and logistics sector, aimed at reducing operational capabilities:

6 x Fighter jet and Yelicopter maintenance centers

3 x Support and logistics centers

12 x Fuel storage

17 x Ammunition and spare parts depots for ships and aircraft

6 x Missile storage facilities

 In the operational infrastructure sector:

6 x MQ-9 drone hangars

1 x F-15 fighter jet preparation hangar

1 x Drone hangar containing 8 brand new drones

2 x Command centers

1 x Aircraft carrier refueling platform

1 x P-8 aircraft hangar

4 x HIMARS missile platforms

5 x Fighter jet hangars

4 x Patriot air defense complexes

6 x Missile launch platforms

1 x Fuel pumping station

2 x Signal communication centers

1 x intelligence data center

1 x AI center, a data processing base belonging to Amazon

1 x remote-controlled vessel (RCV) depot

1 x fuel dock

4 x fighter jet shelters

6 x flight ramps and parking areas

• In the air operations sector:

11 x Fighter Jets and helicopters (on the ground)

17 x reconnaissance and operational drones (8 of which were brand new)

1 x F-15E fighter jet inside a hangar

1 x P-8A Poseidon aircraft

1 x C-17A transport aircraft

8 x Refueling aircraft

4 x Heavy helicopters

6 x Missile storage

Trump’s response to these events was curious, to say the least:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

Iran is officially a Failed Nation. IT IS DEAD! They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no currency, they are not paying their soldiers or police, Inflation is at 300%, and their leadership is in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country. The only thing they have is FAKE NEWS from the USA, a willingness to kill their protesters (now over 100,000 people dead. They must be tried for war crimes against humanity!), and a good line of “BULLSHIT.” Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J.TRUMP

Aside from the obvious hypocrisy involved, one wonders what tribunal would conduct such a trial. The ICC, which the US refuses to join and which Trump recently sanctioned? Weird.

Meanwhile, fallout from Trump’s wars is growing. For example:

This will directly affect grocery prices of meat.

Two additional items. The head of the Bank of Japan thinks he sees a plan:

Stern Drew @SternDrewCrypto

 THE MOST DANGEROUS SENTENCE IN MARKETS JUST CAME FROM JAPAN

BoJ’s Yuto didn’t speculate. He told you the plan.

“How convenient it would be if they could delay the collapse of the current economic order until it coincides with a global crisis. AI. Quantum. Energy shock. Pick one. Our ‘allies’ are already hunting for the perfect scapegoat.”

Read that again.

Japan was about to end its era of free money and initiate the catastrophic carry trade unwind. The BoJ and Finance Minister threatened of bold actions and Yuto even apologized for the measure prepared.

Then boom…. U.S. Treasury Secretary directly intervened and took over BoJ operations. He stopped Japan from dumping their $1.4 Trillion Treasury holdings and instead asked the FED to lend Japan U.S. dollars to dump it and try to save the yen.

IT ALL FAILED. Yen is falling back to pre-intervention levels.

Rates are surging while the yen is falling.

The whole point of intervening in the yen was to ease inflationary pressure and stop rates from surging.

Japan’s 2 year government bond auction today saw almost no demand. Last week, foreign institutions dumped short-dated JGBs at a record pace.

Both sides know the current order is cracking. They’re stretching it just long enough to attach the collapse to a bigger story… AI disruption, energy shock, quantum breakthrough, anything except the debt and the yield spiral itself.

That’s why every major central bank on earth is stacking gold like the building is on fire.

This was exactly warned by the famous City of London banker @LordBelgrave at the start of the year.

The delay is the strategy. The scapegoat is already being written.

Yuto just said it out loud.

Now, regular readers will recall that from time to time I quote Robert Barnes, usually with regard to US politics. I have, however, expressed skepticism with regard to Barnes’ portrayal of Veep Vance as hanging around the White House wearing a white hat. Lately I’ve also been dumbfounded by Barnes’ depiction of “Bridge” Colby, a policy guy at DoD, as one of the sane people in this regime. Colby is a certifiably lunatic China Hawk:

What Now After Losing the Iran War?

Elbridge Colby’s nuclear threats against China are beyond psychotic

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

1h

BREAKING: Iran is launching ballistic missiles from all over the country, in a large-scale wave. So far, Tehran, Karaj, East Azerbaijan, Urmia, West Azerbaijan, Zanjan, Shiraz, Lorestan and Khorramabad.

Multiple explosions at the Muwaffaq Salti US base in Jordan minutes ago, the first target.

.

52m

BREAKING: Iran launches ballistic missiles and drones targeting the US Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, with sirens and explosions reported in Qatar minutes ago.

At least 9 US KC-135 aerial refueling tankers were seen at Al-Udeid 4 days ago, with at least one evacuating shortly after the US strike on Iran earlier today.

.

13m 

BREAKING: Iran’s IRGC announces it has destroyed US fighter jets and the technical and repair Infrastructure at 2 US airbases in Jordan, Prince Hassan Air Base and Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, per Fars.

Bear in mind this recent reporting:

The Pentagon has reported that U.S. military casualties in the ongoing war with Iran have reached 774 as of late August 2026.  This figure includes 18 service members killed and 756 wounded, according to data from the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS).

Most of these casualties are the result of Iran’s ballistic missile strikes. US bases in the region have little in the way of defensive shelters that are effective against those missiles.

Iranian view:

Patarames @Pataramesh

1h

Of course Iran will exploit the U.S. attack

If for nothing else than further depleting the remaining Patriots PAC-3 stocks and some more MQ-9 kills

Strange that the U.S. voluntarily re-entered that cycle

Obviously top commanders can’t frame it in these words, but they’re basically saying, The time to cut and run has come. These guys are professionals. They know what they’re saying pretty much means pulling out of virtually the entire region. They’re saying, in effect, that Iran has won.

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

BREAKING: A classified Pentagon assessment has directly warned Trump’s Secretary of War Hegseth that extending the Iran war will leave the US military dangerously weakened, including for China and Russia, with senior US commanders directly telling him “America can no longer afford to fight this conflict without breaking itself,” per WaPo.

Leaders of US European Command, US Pacific Command, US Southern Command, and the Navy’s top admiral all filed a formal “non-concur” against Hegseth’s order to extend their forces in the Iran war, saying prolonged large-scale operations against Iran are “unsustainable” and risk “weakening US ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the US homeland.” The overall tenor is that the Iran war has been “too much for too long.”

US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle directly told Hegseth the US Navy cannot sustain its current level of support for the Iran conflict because there is no anticipated end date, with barely 1/4 of the US Navy’s destroyer fleet currently ready to deploy, a sharp decline from prewar levels. Caudle directly said “the enemy gets a vote.” The US Navy’s only dedicated aircraft carrier in the Pacific, a keystone of the US military’s plan to deter China, was sent to the Middle East to relieve another carrier deployed for more than 300 days.

US allies in the Pacific have directly warned that the Pentagon’s already catastrophic depletion of missiles and air defense interceptors leave them vulnerable to China.

Don Tzu responds that maybe it’s smarter not to have a plan. Kind of a jujitsu move:

Look for this to become a campaign issue soon.

Meanwhile in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran struck a tanker under US escort. The US responded with an attack on an IRGC position which killed 2.

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

56m

BREAKING: US forces struck 2 IRGC anti-ship missile launchers on Larak Island after the IRGC was observed preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz, per a US official.

Initial reports of multiple IRGC casualties.

Iran will likely retaliate in the coming hours, launching attacks on US bases and ships.

.

BREAKING: Iran’s IRGC announces the US strike on Larak Island “will be met with a response, and the aggressor will be punished,” per Tasnim.

UBS Prices CNY 2 Billion 5-Year Panda Bond in China at Record-Low Coupon Rate

At a time of chaos in the US Treasury market, Yuan denominated bonds will be competing directly for investment money on the international market, at extremely favorable terms—as compared to US offerings. This is one more complication in Bessent’s efforts to get control of the bond market.

Re Iran, The US is touting major increases in oil flowing out from Hormuz. Two points. Even assuming the truth of US representations—dicey at the best of times—it remains that 1) the flows are half of what they were before the war, which is a continuing disaster for the world economy, 2) Iran continues to hit US escorted tankers that don’t comply with Iran’s administration of the strait, and 3) most of the oil is headed to China, and much of that oil is Iranian—which gives the lie to the US blockade claims.

And the last oil news, re Venezuela. In a sense this isn’t news—Trump is continuing to lie to the American people. Apparently polling has told him that Americans are aware that he’s running down the SPR reserves to crisis levels, so … he’s claiming that he’s going to “top off” the SPR with Venezuelan sludge. That would be worth a good laugh if it weren’t a serious matter:

The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter

3h

BREAKING: President Trump says he is going to fill up the US Strategic Oil Reserve with Venezuelan oil.

Trump says the “topping out” process will begin very shortly and is a “gift” from Venezuela to the US.

Problem—well, the truth is always a problem for this regime:

Proposed by an experimental AI contributor responding to requests for a note. Like all contributors, AIs can make mistakes — verify accuracy.

Trump’s quoted statement is accurate per news reports, but the US SPR stores only medium-gravity crudes (typically 30-40° API, per DOE specs) and does not store heavy crude due to operational issues; most Venezuelan oil is heavy sour (often 10-16° API).

https://www.spr.doe.gov/reports/crude_oil_assays.html

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/trump-says-us-will-refill-strategic-petroleum-reserve-using-venezuelan-oil-2026-08-30/

https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/VEN

The new Ratcliffe narrative comes to us via Axios’ house Mossad agent, Barak Ravid, so we can assume that it comes straight from the White House. That doesn’t guarantee accuracy or truthfulness but it does make it sorta official. The story is that Ratcliffe went to Moscow to try to get “peace talks” started again. He apparently proposed a “tri-lateral summit”: Putin, Trump, and Zelensky.

CIA Director Pushed Trump-Putin-Zelensky Summit During Moscow Visit: Report

Axios is reporting over the weekend that the CIA chief proposed a trilateral meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky - when he met with top Kremlin intelligence officials but was not granted a direct meeting with Putin himself.

...

According to some details via Axios:

• Ratcliffe’s visit was partly aimed at determining whether Russia’s heads of intelligence services could help convince Putin to move toward resuming U.S.-mediated negotiations with Ukraine, the sources said.

• ...

• The Trump administration has raised the idea in the past. Zelensky has been on board, but Putin has rejected it.

Over in the Middle East, the Iran war has not gone well for Washington, and so the White House has recently pivoted back to seeking a war forward toward peace in Ukraine, needing a foreign conflict ‘win’.

However, US admin officials have signaled they are not ready to force Ukraine into a ‘bad’ peace deal. …

As for Trump, on Wednesday he told Glenn Beck in an interview: “We would like to see the Ukraine war end,” adding that his administration was “working very hard to get that war ended.“

Two quick points.

1. For multiple reasons—and as noted in the excerpt—this is a non starter for the Russians.

2. This is obviously another in the continuing cycle of PR stunts by Trump to try to deflect public attention in America away from his chaotic administration.

Additional points.

Not stated in the article, but always a part of these proposals from the US, is that a ceasefire in place would be part of the deal. The Russians are on a roll, so the idea of a ceasefire is simply ridiculous for them.

The inclusion of Zelensky is another in a long series of transparent attempts to pretend that the US is not the main aggressor against Russia—the country, without which, there would be no war. Nor is Putin about to demean himself by meeting with a clown like Zelensky—it was bad enough in the past to meet with Trump’s real estate pals.

The current atrocious strikes at civilians and civilian infrastructure in Russia received Trump’s personal imprimatur at the G7 meeting. Russia has responded:

Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen

Aug 29

Russian strikes have destroyed 90% of Ukraine’s modern storage facilities for various types of goods, according to Ukraine’s Agricultural Minister Taras Vysotsky.

Russia did not hit these targets on such a scale before NATO / Ukraine started their deep strikes against warehouses in Russia. Similarly, Russia did not have a blockade on Ukrainian ports before NATO / Ukraine started attacking Russian ships. Now, Russia is hitting everything. Why escalate by targeting civilian infrastructure in Russia when Russia has many times more air power and Ukraine does not have air defence? There is no reflection over these decisions, and there is therefore no course correction.

The political-media establishment in NATO always pivot from excitement during reckless escalation, to shedding crocodile tears when the retaliation comes. Announce an end to NATO expansionism and put an end to this disastrous war.

Finally, note that Axios presents Ratcliffe’s Mission to Moscow as essentially a diplomatic initiative. What does it tell you, then, that Ratcliffe was afforded only a meeting with his direct intel counterpart, Naryshkin, who has no diplomatic standing. No meeting with Lavrov or any other diplomat that we’re aware of, and certainly no meeting with Putin. In other words, Ratcliffe was sent packing pretty unceremoniously. Rigidly formal terms and procedures were followed. It appears that Trump didn’t dare send Rubio, Kushner, or Witkoff—or maybe that was attempted and any meeting with any of them was rejected by the Russians.

A fine 22 minute presentation by The Duran explains the dynamics behind this:

Russia Rejects Vatican and CIA Ceasefire Demands

The idea presented in the video is that the Ratcliffe Mission to Moscow was the culmination of a concerted Trump push to get a PR success on the peace presidency front. First the Vatican was enlisted—the Vatican’s top diplomat went to Moscow and was afforded a meeting with Russia’s top diplomat. The Vatican basically just asked for a ceasefire, and Lavrov’s response was uncompromising: Western diplomacy is built on deception, and all of Russia’s goodwill has been exhausted by the endless attempts at manipulation via deception. The war will be settled on the battlefield.

Then Trump called Brazil’s Lula and asked Lula to call Putin—which he did. It’s worth quoting Mercouris on the result:

The Russians are slamming the door on everything. They’re simply saying, “Look, we can’t negotiate. Everything is based on deception. We’ve been tricked far too many times to let ourselves be tricked all over again.” That’s what they said to Gallagher, the Vatican envoy. That’s what Putin said to Lula. Lula actually telephoned and spoke to Putin. And that’s what Lavrov is telling us, basically, that the Russians said to Ratcliffe.

With that, we’ll slam the door, too.

Military Action As The Ultimate Defense Of The Bond Market--What Does That Mean?

But again, let’s not forget Trump’s threat of military action to shore up Treasury bonds. My guess is that the thinking behind this calculated threat was similar to the thinking behind Trump’s Venezuela adventure and then the Iran adventure. The idea is to shore up the standing of US bonds by amassing, i.e., seizing, control over physical resources—after all, the bond market ultimately is a valuation on credit worthiness. So now think about Greenland and Canada. Trump hasn’t forgotten about either. An invasion of Greenland, of Canada?

Further, this devious announcement is intended to keep interest rates from exploding and to jawbone gasoline prices a bit before the midterms—despite the FACT (see below) that this deal will have zero effect on gasoline prices within any reasonably foreseeable timeframe. So let’s keep this simple:

The reason I call this “devious” is because Trump refers to “more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela”. Leaving aside the interesting question of whether ALL CAPS BARRELS are larger than lower case barrels, in fact the subject of the size of Venezuela’s oil reserves is much disputed in the industry—also leaving aside the other issue of the cost to recover those reserves. Venezuela, it turns out, doesn’t claim the reserves in the oil fields are “proven”. Instead, they speak of “proven potential” reserves—a term which has no technical or legal significance.

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

3h

The oil deal with Venezuela does not take US proved reserves from 46 billion barrels to 111 billion.

Majority control of 17 fields does not give America 7.1% of the world’s oil, does not put it level with the UAE, does not add supply in 2026, and does not replace a barrel lost at Hormuz.

EIA proved reserves are volumes recoverable with reasonable certainty from known reservoirs inside the United States. At year-end 2024 that was about 46 billion barrels of crude oil and lease condensate.

A lease, a 55% offtake right, or “majority control” of Venezuelan acreage does not move oil across a border on the ledger. Venezuela books it, and already does. Those barrels sit inside its 303 billion.

Which makes the 7.1% figure double counting. Venezuela’s reserves are already inside the 1.57 trillion world total. Putting 65 billion in the US column counts the same oil twice.

Caracas also did not say proved reserves. It said 17 fields with a “proven potential” of 65 billion barrels, which is not a classification that exists under SEC or SPE-PRMS rules. The number has moved accordingly: Axios put a similar field list at over 90 billion, a US official said 63. There is no published agreement, no named operator and no audited reserve report behind any of them.

The 17 fields have not been named either. Reuters, which reviewed the list under negotiation, described a mix of undeveloped Orinoco acreage and mature Lake Maracaibo blocks. Orinoco crude is 8–10° API, high sulfur, high metals. It needs diluent, steam and upgraders, plus pipelines and terminals that need billions in repairs first. Venezuela produces roughly 1.1–1.2 million b/d today.

Claims of an oil glut coming out of Venezuela are fantasy.

The 100-year term does not exist in Venezuelan law. The reformed hydrocarbons law caps mixed companies at 25 years plus a single 15-year extension.

These are not the barrels Hormuz carries. The strait moves Murban, Arab Light, Basrah and Kuwait Export, light to medium grades that refineries across Asia and Europe are built to run. Extra-heavy Venezuelan sour is coking feedstock. It competes with Maya and Canadian heavy on the US Gulf Coast. It does not replace a lost Gulf barrel in Ningbo or Rotterdam.

Access to future barrels, if the contract holds and the fields get built, is a long-cycle supply story. It is a contract, not a reserve. Only one of those appears on the EIA ledger.

Again, aside from all those caveats, Venezuelan oil is a real thing. But it will takes years and many billions of dollars worth of infrastructure to develop undeveloped fields and increase the rate of yield from fields that are already producing.

We’ve all seen the articles about the disastrous expenditure of standoff munitions—munitions that the US can’t do without in anything resembling a war against a modernish military. Like Russia’s or China’s or like … Iran’s. By the way, one of those standoff munitions is probably be examined by a team of Iranian, Russian, and Chinese engineers even now:

Megatron @Megatron_ron

Aug 26

NEW: Iran plans to reverse-engineer US stealth JASSM Cruise Missile - Tabnak reports

A largely Intact JASSM Cruise Missile that failed to explode was discovered and seized by the Iranian army during the war

Trump’s foolish adventure has undoubtedly proved to be an intel windfall for core BRICS.

We also know about the disastrous expenditure of missile “interceptors”. That’s the current focus. For example:

‘Beyond Critical’: NATO’s Patriot Shield Runs Dry as Iran War Leaves Europe Exposed to Russian Missiles

Two serving officials warn U.S. Patriot interceptor stocks in Europe are “beyond critical” after Operation Epic Fury drained the arsenal — leaving NATO’s eastern flank exposed to a Russian ballistic missile strike it may be unable to blunt.

These articles come as Russia is once again openly suggesting that it could strike at NATO countries that are attacking Russia.

Megatron @Megatron_ron

Aug 27

 U.S. Patriot interceptor stockpiles in Europe are so low that in the event of a Russian ballistic missile attack on a military headquarters in Europe, NATO would be in a same position as Ukraine and be forced ‘to take punch after punch in the mouth - AP

This goes along with reports that the core of US containment facilities against Iran have been systematically destroyed—to the tune of many billions of dollars worth of all sorts of radars and intel facilities in the Persian Gulf region. The US military has been so blinded that it has been reduced to massive overuse of AWACS planes to substitute for the destruction of infrastructure—which will only be replaced if China agrees to send refined rare earths for that purpose. Simplicius’ latest, The True Extent of Fallout From US’s Defeat in Iran Is Still Being Processed, covers much of this in detail. I’ll quote from some of the sources, but I highly recommend Simplicius’ commentary as well.

The Guardian goes into the financial aspects of all this:

Trump’s war on Iran is rapidly draining US navy budget, documents and interviews reveal

Exclusive: Experts and former officials say accounts are running dry, and funding a war with no clear endgame is the main challenge

Donald Trump’s war on Iran has driven the US military into a severe financial crisis, with the US navy forced to transfer money from its payroll and other sources to cover the costs of combat, according to documents obtained by the Guardian, and interviews with navy officials, contractors and defense analysts.

The US-Israeli operation, which has depleted US munitions stockpiles and prompted retaliatory Iranian strikes that have wrecked strategic bases across the Middle East, is piling pressure on budgets across the military.

One Pentagon memo about navy funding seen by the Guardian warns that there are “shortfalls in payroll” accounts due to the department “raiding” them to fund combat operations.

Experts and former officials say the accounts are running dry. “The piggy bank is broken,” said Harlan Ullman, a retired naval officer. ...

One official and one navy contractor said non-emergency maintenance on shore-based facilities has been deferred because of the cash crunch.

These reports come as we learn that the US deficit is exploding in true Trumpian fashion.

It bears repeating that all this is a result of Trump’s choice to go to war on a roll of the dice, in the face of Tulsi Gabbard’s detailed warnings against it. The latest WSJ article on how this all happened offers no really new details, but it is nevertheless a devastating picture of Trump 2.0 incompetence. Trump would have done far better if had simply listened to Tucker Carlson.

The Warnings That Came Before a War Now Reaching the Six-Month Mark

After military and diplomatic efforts, President Trump pins his hopes on economic warfare

WASHINGTON—Days before going to war with Iran in February, President Trump summoned his intelligence chief to the Oval Office to ask whether a full-on assault was a good idea.

...

Then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard outlined assessments from America’s intelligence apparatus. According to people familiar with the meeting, she told Trump that killing Iran’s supreme leader would likely usher in a more hard-line regime open to acquiring nuclear weapons. Tehran would rush to close the Strait of Hormuz, destabilizing the global energy market. And it would strike U.S. forces and partners in the Middle East, prompting questions about American resolve and reliability with allies.

The notes of caution echoed warnings Trump was receiving from all corners. Top military leaders told the president that a war would lead to casualties, concerns about the weapons stockpile and readiness problems for an overstretched force, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Lots more of the same at the link, including description of Trump’s early chest thumping at his famous victory—especially the murder of Iran’s leader—followed by uncomprehending frustration:

Trump, soaking in the praise from his aides and the guests, crossed his arms and puffed out his chest, people familiar with the event said.

Trump’s beaming wouldn’t last. The battlefield losses and damage to U.S. equipment and bases raised questions over what the U.S. was gaining from the conflict.

Most intriguingly, perhaps, Simplicius quotes extensively from a new article at The Atlantic from ueber Jewish Nationalist, Robert Kagan, who appears to be positioning himself to advise a coming Dem majority. Go to Simplicius for more excerpts or read the actual article. Here I’ll quote the nub of Kagan’s view—with summary comments from Simplicius. Kagan is stressing—as others quoted above are doing—that the true extent of the fallout from the Anglo-Zionist defeat will be global, not just regional. BRICS is the big winner.

…

“For years, Iran confronted a balance of power in the Middle East that tilted against it. The region was dominated by a hostile American superpower, a nuclear-armed and militarily superior Israel, and significant local actors—Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates—that were strategically and economically aligned with the United States.

“Today finds Iran in entirely new circumstances. It has gone head-to-head with the superpower and Israel, withstood a pounding from their most advanced weapons, and more than survived. As a result, Iran has, with American help, completely reconfigured the power structure of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. The dominant power in the region going forward will be Iran, not the U.S. or Israel. Neighboring countries are already making their adjustments to this new reality. More distant powers will too. For years, the world has been dealing with an Iran constrained. It will now discover what Iran unleashed looks like.”

.

Kagan goes on to explain that when Israel attempted to shut down Iran’s gas production, the blowback was so sudden and powerful that it immediately sent Trump TACOing into a ceasefire [by launching a massive strike on Qatar’s LNG infrastructure]:

.

In short, Iran proved to hold the most powerful leverage of all.

He goes on to admit that the MOU signed in June was a clear Iranian victory ...

.

The kicker, Kagan notes, is that Iran didn’t even really need the MOU, and knew the US had no cards to play and would cut tail with or without it:

.

The US now fears escalation more than Iran does, Kagan correctly notes.

For now, Trump feels unable to do a full TACO, despite the ongoing damage to US military readiness—his ego, such as it is, takes priority. Military action, beyond the quasi-blockade that is so debilitating to the USN, appears to be off the board. Economic warfare is being proposed, but it increasingly being ignored or is just pathetic:

Megatron @Megatron_ron

2h

 Trump sanctions: Iranians cannot learn English on Duolingo

As part of the economic D-Day sanctions against Iran, Iranians have been banned from taking the Duolingo English test

While Trump tries to hang on past the midterms, Iran is increasingly confident and is hinting at a renewal of war before November, at the same time that the diesel shortages (diesel prices have already spiked sharply) will start really biting for all delivered goods:

MenchOsint @MenchOsint

22h

Iran’s Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezai:

“If the blockade continues, we will absolutely and decisively target American economic interests.

During the ceasefire, we broke the naval blockade and successfully exported approximately 70 to 80 million barrels of oil.

The level of oil sales has returned to pre-sanctions levels. In addition to unloading floating reserves, we have created new routes for exports, which are gradually increasing.”

That brings us to the conclusion. It’s hard to be sure exactly what’s going on at Hormuz, but here is a suggestive thread.

MenchOsint @MenchOsint

12h

Iran-linked Oil Tanker leaving the ship-to-ship transfer area.

*subscribers know that’s not the first time Iranian Oil/LPG Tankers are seen in the ship-to-ship transfer area or at an UAE/Omani port, but for some reason tankertrackers prefers to ignore this.

Another LPG Tanker, US-sanctioned “SEAGATE”, crossing the strait of Hormuz, via Iran-designated corridor.

UAE-managed Oil Tanker “AMARA” is moving after being detained for 10 days.

Five Oil/LPG tankers are crossing the Strait using Iran-designated corridor this morning.

.

Paul Le Meur @plm203

Yes LPG tankers seem to be the most common noncrude tanker type crossing. It seems that most remain in the GOO [Gulf of Oman] or at most to Oman’s southern coast

They don’t even seem to do STST [ship to ship transfer]. I have several hypotheses:

• Iran is exporting LPG to Oman. Seems consistent with intensified trade between Iran and Oman, https://windward.ai/blog/three-kinetic-incidents-and-an-expanding-iran-oman-corridor/…

• Iran may have somehow adapted to the blockade by lading LPG tankers with other oils

• or adapting its internal crude use to produce massive amounts of LPG for export

• Seagate is planned to deliver its cargo at Shinas. So whatever type of oil it is either used by Oman (say to produce gasoline but Oman’s oil is not very heavy, just a little above world average) or reexported, avoiding a visible STST. In any case Washington would know that Oman is doing business with Iran, which might explain Trump’s threats.

• Of course there is also the possibility that none of those LPG tankers is laden with Iran oil - probably easy to verify with trade intel subscriptions, a little harder without so i haven’t done it. But in any case they usually deliver to Oman. Would have to compare with prewar

Months to go to the midterms. Treacherous waters.

• US fiscal stability, by forcing the US government into the position of needing to borrow (issue more bonds) to pay interest on the bonds that are coming due;

• The status of the USD’s hegemonic dominance throughout the world, by inducing other important countries to seek alternative methods of transacting trade (such as China’s CIPS system) to lessen dependence on holding dollar reserves, thus undercutting US financial leverage as an instrument of global domination;

• The US domestic economy, which is dependent of the AI bubble to an alarming degree. The rise in bond yields would lead to higher interest rates (and inflation) in every sphere of the domestic economy, but most prominently in the AI sector, which is sustaining GDP and the Wall Street casino.

Now, to summarize the many presentations I’ve listened to/read, Economic D-Day is not sanctions on Iran—because Iran has, really since the late Obama years and certainly since 2018, already been under “maximum pressure.” There’s essentially nothing left to sanction Iran with. Instead, Economic D-Day—if it is to mean anything—must mean a declaration of economic war on China, because ultimately it is China that has sustained Iran in ways that other countries under US sanctions have not enjoyed. In other words, the only meaningful way to implement Economic D-Day is through “secondary sanctions”—punishing countries like China

Now, economic war on China is, precisely, war on China. It is a hostile measure intended to force China to accept US terms for its future existence—limits on China’s sovereignty that subject it to the US led Anglo-Zionist empire. China has long understood this, just as Russia and Iran have long understood Anglo-Zionist malign intentions toward them. China has watched all this developing for many years and has not been idle. China’s CIPS payment system is an alternative to US dominated systems (SWIFT, CHIPS) that China has long used to circumvent US sanctions.

“Realist” geopolitical theoreticians—really, in my mind, game theorists—argue that there remain solutions short of war. Thus, Prof Pape in a succinct five minute (or so) video presentation (with an excellent transcript if you click on “more”) makes that argument:

Professor Pape - 3 Slide Briefing: China’s Price For Compliance On Iran

Pape, like the other commentators, recognizes that threatening China—as Bessent and Trump did—is a losing proposition, if the desired outcome is Chinese compliance with sanctions. Not only has China constructed a viable workaround to USD leveraged sanctions (which will be increasingly attractive to the rest of the world) but China has multiple ways to strike back against the US with its own sanctions. China can make those sanctions stick and can make them hurt—possibly to the extent of plunging the US into a very major depression.

Pape doesn’t exactly say this, but it’s possible that he regards Trump regime rhetoric as its typical prelude to offering a deal. If so, recent history tells us that that approach will backfire—bigly. Like most realists or game theorists, Pape doesn’t factor in civilizational self esteem, historical pride—and that is, as has been repeatedly demonstrated, a fatal mistake in dealing with countries like China, Russia, and Iran. That’s for starters.

Secondly, Pape suggests—based on his understanding of international relations—that there actually could be a deal to be made that might result in China (and Russia) selling out Iran. He offers as an example the JCPOA deal in which Russia and China did, indeed, sell out Iran—something that Iran hasn’t forgotten, although current analysts of the Trump war on Iran do tend to forget. Basically, Russia and China agreed to crushing sanctions on Iran in exchange for concessions from the US (quoting Pape):

• The U.S. traded away its planned missile defense system in Eastern Europe. Russia agreed to limit its sales of advanced air defense systems to Tehran and support the 2015 nuclear deal.

• Simultaneously, the Obama administration quietly scaled back its highly publicized ‘Pivot to Asia.’ Washington transformed what was supposed to be a massive military buildup in China’s backyard into a softer, purely diplomatic effort, choosing not to significantly increase U.S. forces in the region.

I’m not convinced that that deal can be accepted as done. In fact, the US has reneged on both the letter and spirit of the deal over the succeeding decade. Pape doesn’t mention that fact, but it undoubtedly plays largely into what’s going on now, contributing to the loss of trust in the US that makes deal making well nigh impossible. How many times have the Russians described America as “agreement incapable”?

With that caveat, here’s Pape’s scheme for a new deal with Russia and China, in return for selling out Iran once again. First, Pape recognizes that the US has very steep “asks”:

The Trump administration wants more than just a freeze on nuclear enrichment. Washington wants a complete reversal of its strategic defeat in the Middle East. It wants to break Iran’s regional power and restore undisputed U.S. dominance over the Persian Gulf.

For China to sit back and allow the U.S. to crush its primary energy partner, Beijing is going to demand a trade far bigger than anything Obama offered. They will likely demand a fundamental ‘sphere of influence’ trade.

Xi Jinping’s price for cooperation would be nothing less than the complete withdrawal of U.S. military forces and bases from East Asia—forcing the American military perimeter to pull all the way back to Hawaii.

That is the raw geopolitical quid pro quo: a guaranteed U.S. sphere of influence in the Persian Gulf in exchange for an uncontested Chinese sphere of influence in Asia. That is the scale of the ask required to get Xi’s attention.

I’m not sure whether Pape truly believes that China would seriously consider such a daft snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory. A complete reversal of America’s massive strategic defeat and a return of everything Trump lost in the Middle East? Worse even than that, surrender of the Middle East to the Anglo-Zionists would destroy the entire structure of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in exchange for, what? Recognition of a regional hegemony in East Asia that is already within China’s grasp? And all based on trust in Trump and Bessent’s words? Pape must think the Chinese are really stupid. Pape, I think, is somehow failing to factor in either the scale of the Trumpian disaster that has already occurred, as well as the scale of the future disasters.

No. China is not going to trade away its great strategic victory, the definitive end to its Century of Humiliation. China will want Iran to continue applying pressure to the US economy and the US bond market—and possibly launching its own military strikes. China has already announced that it will defend its sovereignty and “interests” by insisting on international law—not engaging in bandit deals with a criminal regime. Count on that happening. China can accept temporary economic disruption because it has its entire development strategy—the fruit of years of planning and painstaking implementation—to gain.

All this illustrates how the bond market intervention, sanctions wars, and the hugely expensive war on Iran are tied tightly together. In that regard, I want to highly recommend an article by Dylan Ratigan about the importance of the bond market. It’s non technical and I’ll quote just a bit of it:

The Most Important Story

Last week, with total US government debt north of $40 trillion, the Treasury attempted to manipulate long-term interest rates using two different techniques. It announced it would at least double its purchases of long-term government bonds, and it moved to buy back far more of its own debt than planned. The goal was to push down borrowing costs after the 30-year Treasury yield hit its highest level since 2007 — a nineteen-year high.

The market moved for about a day. Then yields climbed right back to where they started.

Then, on Friday, standing on the tarmac before boarding Air Force One, the President was asked whether he’d directed the Treasury Secretary to intervene, and whether another type of intervention was coming.

He said this: “The ultimate intervention is our military. And if we have to use that, we will.”

I want to sit with that for a second, because the reflex is to treat it as a gaffe and move on, and I think that’s a mistake.

Screaming in a Bloomberg newsroom over a bond story and a president invoking the military in response to a bond question are, structurally, the same signal.

Both are people responding to the fact that this market matters more than almost anything else in the world.

The bond market gets almost no coverage. Ninety-nine percent of Americans could not tell you what happened in it this week and have no reason to care.

But, It sets the price of everything on earth.

Every mortgage rate, every car loan, every corporate borrowing cost, every government’s ability to fund itself, every currency’s relative value — all of it is priced off the risk-free benchmark that US Treasuries provide. That’s not a metaphor. It’s the actual plumbing.

And it rests on a single assumption: that lending money to the United States government, in US dollars, is the closest thing to risk-free that exists.

If that assumption breaks — if investors begin pricing US government debt as a genuinely risky asset rather than the global baseline — that is a catastrophic change in the status and credibility of the United States as the dominant economy in the world. Not a bad quarter. A structural repricing of everything.

That’s what the yelling was always about.

Here’s another recommendation, a BBC video interview of a Johns Hopkins prof who, to my mind, correctly estimates just how much strategic standing Trump has already flushed down his golden toilet (I’m assuming), why the current moves are a declaration of war on China, and the likelihood that the backfires will continue and likely intensify—because Trump can’t own defeat. It’s only half an hour:

Luke Gromen @LukeGromen

“You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Trump’s Iran gamble: Will it backfire? | The Global Story

00:00 President Trump’s plan for Iran
01:42 What are the new US economic sanctions?
03:00 What is an economic sanction?
07:10 The history of US sanctions against Iran
10:20 How are the sanctions affecting Iranians?
14:12 How will China respond to the sanctions?
18:00 How could China retaliate?
20:27 What is the worst case scenario?

But again, let’s not forget Trump’s threat of military action to shore up Treasury bonds. My guess is that the thinking behind this calculated threat was similar to the thinking behind Trump’s Venezuela adventure and then the Iran adventure. The idea is to shore up the standing of US bonds by amassing, i.e., seizing, control over physical resources—after all, the bond market ultimately is a valuation on credit worthiness. So now think about Greenland and Canada. Trump hasn’t forgotten about either. An invasion of Greenland, of Canada?

Sean Foo today gets into some of that. Briefly, he recalls that back in 2025 Trump threatened tariff war on Canada and the EU if they tried to set up a special relationship. Then Trump went ahead and smashed both with tariffs. We see the result with Canada, and also with increased EU restiveness. In fact, Canada—in addition to seeking to diversify its energy exports to China and East Asia—has entered into a complementary agreement with Germany to supply LNG. It takes effect in 2032, when the infrastructure will be in place. The effect will be to switch trillions in trade from the USD to the Euro. If you don’t think alarm bells are going off at Treasury, guess again. No wonder Trump is excoriating Canada. Give it a listen:

Allies are DUMPING America - Canada’s PIVOT to EU to BREAK Dollar System

Economist Steve Hanke offered that bit of wisdom (“Trump is a captive of the war”) this morning, speaking with Lena Petrova. That’s a twist on Prof Pape’s Escalation Trap—mark that: It’s a twist. Hanke isn’t saying Trump will escalate. He’s saying Trump is in a box he can’t get out of, and the walls keep closing in on him. There’s a corollary to that, also coming from an economist, Philip Pilkington: It’s all PR Ops, probably to try to get past the midterms.

That’s right. We’re talking about Economic D-Day or whatever this latest ploy is called. What’s escalating is the rhetoric, but not much else. Because the US has still lost the war and is still in no position to resume it, and is still facing an economic crisis with Iran turning the screws. What’s the tell? It turns out that these fearsome sanctions don’t cover everything and don’t take effect until … January, 2027.

The real point is that they got everyone talking about sanctions and forgetting about the bond market for a bit and maybe not paying attention to all the financial gurus who are saying that Bessent’s latest moves will blow up in all our faces. Still, maybe the sanctions threats, which may never materialize, which will probably never materialize—because China—will discourage some countries that are more timid than China (or Canada?) from doing business with Iran, even without the sanctions actually being in effect. On the rather shaky assumption that Trump 2.0 actually finds some magical way out of the multiple messes it finds itself in. But don’t count on that.

Philip Pilkington @philippilk

1h

“Hey man, what do you think of the latest global happenings?”

“Hang on bro, I need to ignore the headlines and jump right into the latest Bloomberg Explainer…”

As Hanke also stated, the fundamentals are the fundamentals. You can’t get around them and they don’t just go away. No tricks can change the fundamentals, only fundamental changes can do that. Trump is still trying tricks, because fundamental changes would destroy him overnight. The tricks delay the day of reckoning, that’s all.

Here’s the icing on the cake. Remember how Hormuz is open and under US control?

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

BREAKING: The US has proposed cancelling the new “Operation Economic Outcast,” lifting all sanctions, and ending the US blockade in exchange for Iran opening the Strait of Hormuz and stopping all attacks by its proxies, per Al Arabiya citing a senior source on a new separate offer conveyed by Pakistan.

Iran’s conditions, however, remain unchanged: $300 billion in US compensation, complete lifting of all US sanctions, release of all Iranian frozen assets ($100-123 billion), end of the US naval blockade, US troop withdrawal from the entire region, and a comprehensive regional ceasefire including in Lebanon and Gaza.

But that was yesterday. How about today? Today the CIA’s John Ratcliffe took a little jaunt to Moscow to meet with multiple high level officials. It was a whirlwind visit—he’s already on his return trip.

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

1h

Whatever CIA director Ratcliffe was in Moscow for did not take long or did not go well.

After a series of still unknown high-level meetings with Russian officials, he just departed Moscow bound for Riga, Latvia.

What are we to make of this? Given that Ratcliffe heads an important NatSec agency, it’s at least conceivable that Trump is trying to initiate some new “peace” initiative with Putin. And if you’re thinking about that, then you’re not thinking about Iran, the price of oil, the bond market, or the midterms.

Of course, there’s always the question: Why would this time be any different than the other times? To score a win for his “peace presidency” before the midterms? That would make sense, except for the fact that the Anglo-Zionists will never make peace with a strong and sovereign Russia, any more than they would do that with a strong and sovereign Iran. Or China, for that matter. Control of the world through the combination of finances and US military muscle is a zero sum game for the Anglo-Zionists. Their backs are against the wall, but any truces or ceasefires can only be temporary. That means that the Anglo-Zionists will only allow Trump to make an offer to Putin that Putin can and will refuse.

And so Philip Pilkington maintains that this, too, is just another PR Op.

Philip Pilkington @philippilk

1h

Calling it: Moscow plane thing is BS. Like the alien memes on Trump’s Truth Social. Too much fake mystery with it.

It’s to distract markets so they don’t melt down for a few more days.

.

Too much coverage of this on the cringeBROSINT accounts. It’s an op to distract from Treasury yields. Posting AI pics of greys - the Pentagon’s typical retarded boomer staple - no longer works. This is all so pathetic.

.

Axios has weighed in on the latest sad PR op. It’s totally fake. Focus on the markets. Aliens cloning Melania or whatever slop was being put out a few weeks ago was more compelling.

.

This is desperate. Keep an eye on those Treasury markets, big brain frens.

.

They’re distracting from the problems in the Treasury markets by activating the sloppiest accounts on X. [linking to War Monitor]

.

Guys, they’re trying to pump a day or two of headlines out of a fake meeting to distract from the issues in the Treasury market. Congrats, US diplomats, you are now an instrument of Desperation Tier quantitative easing.

Sounds about right to me. Trump is frantic to reverse his continued slide in the polls. Having broken every “deal” he has made with foreign leaders he now needs them to bail him out and even make him look competent. Don’t hold your breath.

That’s right. We’re talking about Economic D-Day or whatever this latest ploy is called. What’s escalating is the rhetoric, but not much else. Because the US has still lost the war and is still in no position to resume it, and is still facing an economic crisis with Iran turning the screws. What’s the tell? It turns out that these fearsome sanctions don’t cover everything and don’t take effect until … January, 2027.

The real point is that they got everyone talking about sanctions and forgetting about the bond market for a bit and maybe not paying attention to all the financial gurus who are saying that Bessent’s latest moves will blow up in all our faces. Still, maybe the sanctions threats, which may never materialize, which will probably never materialize—because China—will discourage some countries that are more timid than China (or Canada?) from doing business with Iran, even without the sanctions actually being in effect. On the rather shaky assumption that Trump 2.0 actually finds some magical way out of the multiple messes it finds itself in. But don’t count on that.

Philip Pilkington @philippilk

1h

“Hey man, what do you think of the latest global happenings?”

“Hang on bro, I need to ignore the headlines and jump right into the latest Bloomberg Explainer…”

As Hanke also stated, the fundamentals are the fundamentals. You can’t get around them and they don’t just go away. No tricks can change the fundamentals, only fundamental changes can do that. Trump is still trying tricks, because fundamental changes would destroy him overnight. The tricks delay the day of reckoning, that’s all.

Here’s the icing on the cake. Remember how Hormuz is open and under US control?

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

BREAKING: The US has proposed cancelling the new “Operation Economic Outcast,” lifting all sanctions, and ending the US blockade in exchange for Iran opening the Strait of Hormuz and stopping all attacks by its proxies, per Al Arabiya citing a senior source on a new separate offer conveyed by Pakistan.

Iran’s conditions, however, remain unchanged: $300 billion in US compensation, complete lifting of all US sanctions, release of all Iranian frozen assets ($100-123 billion), end of the US naval blockade, US troop withdrawal from the entire region, and a comprehensive regional ceasefire including in Lebanon and Gaza.

But that was yesterday. How about today? Today the CIA’s John Ratcliffe took a little jaunt to Moscow to meet with multiple high level officials. It was a whirlwind visit—he’s already on his return trip.

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

1h

Whatever CIA director Ratcliffe was in Moscow for did not take long or did not go well.

After a series of still unknown high-level meetings with Russian officials, he just departed Moscow bound for Riga, Latvia.

What are we to make of this? Given that Ratcliffe heads an important NatSec agency, it’s at least conceivable that Trump is trying to initiate some new “peace” initiative with Putin. And if you’re thinking about that, then you’re not thinking about Iran, the price of oil, the bond market, or the midterms.

Of course, there’s always the question: Why would this time be any different than the other times? To score a win for his “peace presidency” before the midterms? That would make sense, except for the fact that the Anglo-Zionists will never make peace with a strong and sovereign Russia, any more than they would do that with a strong and sovereign Iran. Or China, for that matter. Control of the world through the combination of finances and US military muscle is a zero sum game for the Anglo-Zionists. Their backs are against the wall, but any truces or ceasefires can only be temporary. That means that the Anglo-Zionists will only allow Trump to make an offer to Putin that Putin can and will refuse.

And so Philip Pilkington maintains that this, too, is just another PR Op.

Philip Pilkington @philippilk

1h

Calling it: Moscow plane thing is BS. Like the alien memes on Trump’s Truth Social. Too much fake mystery with it.

It’s to distract markets so they don’t melt down for a few more days.

.

Too much coverage of this on the cringeBROSINT accounts. It’s an op to distract from Treasury yields. Posting AI pics of greys - the Pentagon’s typical retarded boomer staple - no longer works. This is all so pathetic.

.

Axios has weighed in on the latest sad PR op. It’s totally fake. Focus on the markets. Aliens cloning Melania or whatever slop was being put out a few weeks ago was more compelling.

.

This is desperate. Keep an eye on those Treasury markets, big brain frens.

.

They’re distracting from the problems in the Treasury markets by activating the sloppiest accounts on X. [linking to War Monitor]

.

Guys, they’re trying to pump a day or two of headlines out of a fake meeting to distract from the issues in the Treasury market. Congrats, US diplomats, you are now an instrument of Desperation Tier quantitative easing.

Sounds about right to me.

The Saudis, really strapped for cash, came up with a scheme to thwart Yemen’s blockade. They sent 10 VLCCs around Africa, probably intended to stop off Egypt. Then smaller tankers coming from Yanbu would do a ship to ship transfer of oil and the VLCCs would go all the way back around Africa to the Far East. You can gauge KSA’s desperation from this scheme.

The Houthis in Yemen have just shown that they can cover the entire Red Sea. The tanker they hit was presumably moving, and that has to concern the USN. If the Houthis can do that, albeit to a slow moving tanker, what might Iran be able to do to USN ships?

MenchOsint @MenchOsint

At least 10 Saudi Oil Tankers (including 9 VLCC) are rerouting around Africa, heading to the eastern Meditteranean Sea where they will probably take cargo by ship-to-ship transfer before returning to Asia, as VLCC can’t cross Suez Canal.

MenchOsint @MenchOsint

 UKMTO reported an incident off Yanbu coast, a tanker has been struck by a projectile this morning, causing a fire.

*most likely a Saudi-owned Oil Tanker.

MenchOsint @MenchOsint

Direct hit at sea with a projectile fired from more than 1,000km  the Yemenis are improving their skills.

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

BREAKING: New York Buffalo International Airport out of fuel and unable to refuel aircraft, NOTAM issued.

Philip Pilkington @philippilk

6h

Is the Canadian oil being taken offline to further squeeze Trump before the midterms? If so, Canada has now de facto joined the Global South in their economic war on America. Crazy times.

You have to ask yourself, If Trump can’t keep Canada in line, what are his chances with Xi? Because China is the real, the ultimate, target of the entire trade war. Carney is talking about withholding 300K barrels of oil per day, which is significant for the US economy, but Bessent is going to pivot to bringing China to its knees? PP is flummoxed—why can’t Trump go on TV sipping maple syrup and put the Canada thing behind him for six months?

Jeffrey Currie, speaking with Mario, is also flummoxed. He sees Trump having placed Canada on the same page with Iran and most of the rest of the world. These are all players with just about no interest in being on the same side—except resisting the US. Currie sees this as a signal that Trump - Bessent have totally lost control.

Oil CEOs are off the regime bus. They’re not talking about any oil glut or Hormuz being choked with outbound tankers, VLCCs.

Brave AI summary of numerous articles:

Shell CEO Wael Sawan has warned that the global energy system’s “shock absorbers”—primarily oil inventories—are weakening due to a critical supply shortfall. The market is currently facing a deficit of nearly 1 billion barrels of crude, a gap that is deepening daily as the world burns through emergency reserves to cover the loss of approximately 12% of global supply caused by the Strait of Hormuz blockade. 

Sawan emphasized that this shortage cannot be resolved quickly, even if the conflict ends, because restarting shut-in wells can take up to seven months and rebuilding inventories will require additional time. Consequently, supply balances are expected to remain tight for the coming months and potentially into 2027, with recent volatility also creating secondary shortages in diesel and gasoline as refineries pivoted to maximize jet fuel production.

Prof Pape is a skeptic on sanctions generally:

Robert A. Pape @ProfessorPape

1h

Bessent’s Economic D-Day is up against the weight of history

Maximum economic pressure alone -- without military action -- has not won a major war since 1918

Reporters at his news conference should ask him to name one major case of success

Betting against the weight of history? Well, Trump doesn’t read books, so he’s probably not too up on history. Don’t know much about history. Doomed to repeat it?

Unsurprisingly, gold is surging:

The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter

BREAKING: Gold futures surge above $4,700/oz for the first time since May 14th.

Philip Pilkington @philippilk

This is strong evidence that @chrismartenson’s theory that China asked the US for low gold prices as part of the deal to half oil imports during the MOU period.

Global Markets Investor @GlobalMktObserv

23h

Chinese investors are aggressively returning to gold:

Gold open interest on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) spiked to nearly 400,000 lots this week, the highest since September 2025.

Try to wrap your head around this next from Gromen. What he’s describing is in line with the overall goal—to suppress interest rates on US debt. But it would also be a part of the “debasement trade” (inflating away US debt) that Gromen, and others, maintain is unavoidable. Remember that the US has been exporting gold since last year, but that it also has seized gold everywhere the US military has gone. Most recently, Venezuelan gold was seized (I think it was physically stored in London). My understanding—subject to input from people who understand all this—is that using gold in this manner could somehow cushion the US economic crash.

Luke Gromen @LukeGromen

Every $4,000 increase in gold prices is an additional $1T Bessent could add to the TGA to buyback USTs, simply by instructing Warsh to revalue US official gold, per

Higher gold prices are now Bessent’s (& Warsh’s) friend, NOT their “enemy” (as Volcker once said.)

Let’s close with (mostly) PP’s view of what’s going down. PP doesn’t think China will comply with secondary sanctions on Iran. Here’s my take. Secondary sanctions are a demand that China surrender its sovereignty to Trump and Bessent. Beyond anything PP says, the demand that China surrender its sovereignty to these long standing enemies of China is almost guaranteed to cause a full scale economic war, that China is positioned to win.

Philip Pilkington @philippilk

Bessent just published an article in the FT. It reads like an economic suicide note. I think the US is legit about to blow its brains out by imposing secondary sanctions on China as the USD global system unwinds.

Philip Pilkington @philippilk

1h

Looks like the US government is going to try to take complete control over the bond market. Seems like a pretty bearish signal for the dollar to me. Is the Toilet Paper Trade about to kick into high gear?

Exactly. Who will want to buy treasuries on such terms as USG control—which cannot be trusted? Other than the Treasury itself?

*Walter Bloomberg @DeItaone

BESSENT COULD UNLEASH $1 TRILLION ON BOND MARKET

The US Treasury could tap its nearly $1 trillion cash account to fund expanded bond buybacks, potentially giving it major firepower to push long-term yields lower.

...

Here’s Mario’s summary of his conversation with Philip Pilkington:

Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal

...

Economist Philip Pilkington joins me to break down what is actually happening beneath the headlines:

Primary sanctions on Iran are already maxed out, having been at effective maximum pressure since 2012, which is why the real question is secondary sanctions and whether Trump will actually impose them on China.

The main target is China—as above, to force China to surrender its sovereignty to Trump/Bessent, return to subjection to Anglo-Zionism. Announcing secondary sanctions on China is one thing. Enforcing them is a totally other thing.

If he does, China will not comply, because folding on Iran would destroy their entire credibility as an alternative to the American-led order.

And the economic blowback on the U.S. would be SEVERE: rare earths cut off, the AI bubble popped, treasury markets further destabilized...

PP maintains that Chinese pushback would largely collapse the US economy—and pretty quickly.

…

The ‘disease’ is a global financial system under simultaneous pressure from war, sanctions, currency crises, and a U.S. bond market nobody fully controls anymore.

Well lets end with Mario and Jeffrey Currie:

Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal

18h

 30-year Treasury yields just hit their highest level since 2007, and the government is now buying its own bonds to try to hold them down.

Jeffrey Currie, fmr. head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, joins me for one of the most alarming macro conversations I’ve had since this war began:

Intervening in oil markets, propping up the yen, offering swap lines to Gulf states, and finally resorting to buying back its own bonds the day after record yields printed.

The U.S. government has now exhausted EVERY tool it had to hold yields down...

“It’s clear they’ve lost control”

The buyback isn’t alarming on its own, but the timing is: it came immediately after record yields, signaling the government doesn’t like the price the market is setting.

It’s the same pattern it used in oil and the yen, and both of those interventions eventually failed.

On energy: oil is back at $94, diesel at $85, and Currie warns the bond market hasn’t priced in the higher diesel numbers, so the real inflation shock is still ahead.

On AI: he draws a direct parallel to the 2013 shale bubble, too much capital chasing returns in a sector whose cost structure breaks the moment energy gets expensive, with China already undercutting western AI.

His most striking observation: the West has controlled the global network of strategic ports for 400 years, from the Portuguese in Bahrain in 1602 to Diego Garcia today.

Losing Hormuz marks the beginning of the end of that network...

Currie, the commodities researcher, states with regard to the global network that he has never seen so much disruption to global commodities movement—from oil to grain (Black Sea) to everything else that’s essential to the global economy. Brought to you by the Jewish Nationalist war on the world.

No doubt we’ll be seeing much more coming round the bend this week.

As best I can remember, it started with leaks that Trump was considering—once again—using nukes on Iran. But wait, it turned out that Hormuz was open and there was a virtual bottleneck of tanker traffic, so forget the nukes. Then Bessent intervened in the bond market. Woops! When that effort came a cropper Trump weighed in with his threat to bomb anyone selling treasuries. Then Trump and Bessent finished off the week that was with their proposed Economic D-Day, without prior consultation with, like, anybody. Capped by Bessent telling China to “get with the program” or the US would cut them off from Persian Gulf oil. Then Trump pulled the rug out from under Mark Carney. As I understand what happened, Trump and Carney had a deal that would have cut Canadian trade with China. It was all read for signing, but then Trump tried to insert a clause that said Trump could raise tariffs on Canada anytime he wanted to in the future. Now Carney is reminding Trump how much the US needs Canadian oil—which is true—and threatening economic war on is own part.

And to cap it all, Trump asserted that he wasn’t even thinking about the midterms, much less concerned about them. A dead giveaway of exactly the opposite.

What’s going on here?

One place to start might be this article today at AmCon:

The Age of Cohn

A new biography of the notorious lawyer sheds light on the Trump era.

It can’t be emphasized enough that Roy Cohn was Trump’s mentor before Trump hooked up with Epstein. To give you a flavor for this book review:

In the 11 years since Donald John Trump crashed American politics at the end of a golden escalator ride, oceans of ink have been spilled attempting to explain his and his movement’s political origins. …

Kai Bird points us … to a universe where ideology matters less than crass opportunism in the pursuit of money, sex, and power—where extreme narcissists will shatter everything around them to get their way. This was Roy Cohn’s world; Donald Trump is his inheritor.

... So how did a self-described “biographer of the American establishment” choose an embodiment of its antithesis? Bird admits that a few years ago he had “an epiphany and realized that with the political rise of Donald Trump I had somehow underestimated the significance of Roy Cohn.”

Readers of this page-turning, sometimes cringe-inducing book may agree that Cohn’s stamp on history has heretofore been underappreciated. They may also feel the need to take a shower after spending so much time with such a despicable man.

…

“Trump learned from Cohn that the court of public opinion is far more important than a court of law,” Bird says. Had he lived long enough, Cohn might have coined “fake news,” one of the current president’s favorite insults. Both men, of course, loved the media spotlight and privately sought favorable coverage to reinforce their strongman reputations.

Also like his mentor, Trump inspires hatred in his enemies. Indeed, he seems to feed off it. Readers who endure Cohn’s remorseless crime spree across four decades of American life will better understand how his kindred spirit and protege could eventually make it to the White House.

OK, so, what’s going on? Maybe this past week reminds you a bit of the beginning of Trump 2.0. Remember the tariff shock and awe, with which Trump was going to strongarm the world with his “strongman reputation”, forcing the world to disgorge trillions to send to the US, where Trump would distribute the largess to his tech bro allies (and others) and pay off the debt? Or at least reduce the debt to manageable proportions? Or refinance it by rejiggering global trade? Or something? All while littering the Imperial City on the Potomac with monuments to himself—the new Genghiz Khan, or Napoleon? Venezuela was supposed to be a lesson to the likes of China and Russia and Iran to “get with the program.”

But Trump progressively lost control of that program, and my suspicion is that the antics of the past week were his attempt to regain control. But with some serious aspects. I can’t prove this, but I do suspect that the outrageous lies about 40 tankers transiting Hormuz in a single night—put out by Trump’s favorite Mossad scribe at Axios—was bluster aimed at, well, certainly at Canada, which supplies the US with similar grades of oil. Possibly at China, too, although the Chinese are probably immune to that sort of nonsense. Certainly all the over the top threats fit within Trump’s Cohnian mold. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

My prediction is that all this bluster will be to no effect, so in the meantime lets round things up a bit. Because there are some interesting things going on. Let’s start with the shifting tectonic plates of American politics and the limits of money.

Megatron @Megatron_ron

Aug 22

 Mike Rogers, Michigan’s Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, has asked AIPAC not to run ads supporting his campaign, fearing that backing from the pro-Israel group could hurt him among voters angered by the war in Gaza, Axios reports.

Rogers discussed the issue with AIPAC chair Michael Tuchin in Los Angeles last week, and the group shelved a video ad targeting his Democratic opponent, Israel critic Abdul El-Sayed, the following day.

Speaking of shifting tectonic plates, that could be happening in West Asia, as well. Although unconfirmed, this is being widely reported. If true, it’s very big. I would expect—again, if true—that Egypt would be in line as well. It would spell the end of US dominance in the region:

Clash Report @clashreport

NEW: Iran has reportedly been invited to join the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Türkiye.

Mehdi Rahimi, head of the Iranian parliament’s official news agency Khaneh Mellat, told Al-Mayadeen that Iran received an invitation and that “the matter is under consideration.”

For now, however, the invitation has not been independently confirmed by Iran’s Foreign Ministry or senior leadership, nor publicly by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Türkiye.

This falls in line with earlier reports out of Iran:

محمدباقر قالیباف | MB Ghalibaf @mb_ghalibaf

1/2 We’ve received numerous messages from neighboring countries about shaping new security arrangements and economic cooperation in the region.

The United States put the security of every single one of its allies at such risk through bullying and pure disregard for their interests for the sake of Israel that they briefly saw their entire existence on the line.

A homegrown, independent order is what will actually deliver peace and security.

Here’s a burst of Iran updates:

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

9m

BREAKING: US House Speaker Mike Johnson says the Iran war is going to enter a “new phase very soon,” declaring “we’ll get this finished.”

Dutifully talking up Economic D-Day?

BREAKING: Iran views the war as restarting in the coming days, with Marandi saying “In the coming days, it is very likely that the military conflict will be renewed.”

I wonder whether this signals a kinetic Iranian response to Trump’s Economic D-Day?

BREAKING: The Trump administration has asked Pakistan to send a new peace deal proposal to Iran to keep Iran’s “IRGC backchannel” open, coming as a senior Iranian official says Trump is using Pakistani officials to announce fabricated talks rumors to stabilize the oil market, per Reuters and a senior Iranian official in Tehran familiar with the matter.

Iran, however, continues to refuse reopening the Strait of Hormuz or return to negotiations unless Trump agrees to all of Iran’s conditions, including $300 billion in US compensation, the lifting of all US sanctions, the release of all Iranian frozen assets, and the end of the US naval blockade of Iran.

BREAKING: Iran announces the discovery of major gas reserves [in southern Fars province] worth over $165 billion, containing more than 7.5 trillion cubic feet of “sweet” natural gas, the highest quality type with close to zero impurities, plus significant gas condensates, Iran’s oil minister told IRIB.

BREAKING: U.S. service member casualties in the Iran war have just jumped to 774 wounded or killed, after the Pentagon added scores of new troops to the wounded list in the last few days, per WaPo.

BREAKING: Iran’s IRGC has successfully shut down a UK power plant for 4 days in an unprecedented cyber attack, believed to be the first time Iranian-affiliated hackers have successfully shut down a UK facility of this kind, per The Telegraph.

BREAKING: Trump made over 1,000 stock trades in June alone worth up to $263 million tied to market events he created, often buying and selling the same security on the same day after the event was over, per new government ethics filing.

Recent purchases include Visa, Berkshire Hathaway, Mastercard, and Cintas, following 3,642 trades involving stocks of public companies between January 1st and March 31st. Trump also made more than 21,000 securities trades in 2025 in bursts tied to market events he created, with the total value between $600 million and $1.86 billion, occasionally buying and selling the same security on the same day.

The White House claims Trump’s trades pose “no conflict of interest” as they are “independently managed,” coming amid Trump already being sued in federal court over Trump Media selling advance access to his Truth Social posts to subscribers paying up to $100,000 per month via Truth API.

BREAKING: Iran warns it “will respond with an earthquake-like retaliation” in response to Trump’s economic warfare, directly warning all Gulf countries not to join the economic war, and saying Iran will strike all US-backed Gulf energy infrastructure and Hormuz bypass oil routes, including Yanbu and Fujairah, Iran’s SNSC chief Rezaei told IRIB.

On the financial front Trump 2.0 is encountering open skepticism, even from the establishment media—but bear in mind that everything Trump/Bessent do is connected:

JaguarAnalytics @JaguarAnalytics

Financial Times:

“Scott Bessent’s running battle with the bond market is starting to look like his boss’s war in Iran — started by his own hand with a tangled set of objectives, an underestimated opponent and an implausible path to victory. And like the conflict in the Middle East, we are all going to suffer its effects.

Three weeks ago, of course, he inserted himself in the market for the Japanese yen, of all things, buying the currency to prop it up in what was painted as a friendly act of solidarity with an ally in need.

The link back to Treasury bonds may not be immediately obvious, but bond market insiders are not buying the friends-helping-friends explanation, and instead see it as an effort to stop Japan from fixing its yen problem by selling down its gigantic stash of US debt.

So now, no fewer than three times in three weeks, Bessent has given the message to investors to please stop selling his bonds. But they are selling his bonds anyway.”

Was this the wrong time to anger Canada?

Could be a wild ride coming up.

Trump’s threat to punish countries that drop US dollar will speed up de-dollarization

Donald Trump has threatened that, if he comes back as US president, he will impose 100% tariffs on countries that drop the dollar, trying to cut off their trade. Ben Norton discusses how this will accelerate the global dedollarization movement, incentivizing more nations to join China, Russia, and BRICS in seeking financial alternatives.

That threat was made before most of the world was aware that all Trump’s peace talk was a cover for fronting for the Anglo-Zionist war on the world, starting within months of inauguration with a sneak attack on Iran. The standing of the USD has been on ever shakier ground since then—not that it wasn’t on shaky ground already, but the trend has accelerated.

Matters reached crisis levels this past week when Bessent—who appears to be a sort of co-president—attempted to intervene in the bond markets to force interest rates on Treasuries lower. This was deemed necessary because rates had reached the point at which the Treasury could be forced to borrow—i.e., issue more bonds—in order to pay off the interest coming due. Borrow to pay interest on our debts. You read that right. Go back and read that again if you skipped over it. So, clearly, the threat of tariff shock and awe had fallen flat once more—yeah, if you don’t like the dollar we’ll impose a massive tax on Americans. Go figure. Anyway, what happened next was a real shocker for true believers in King Dollar. After a momentary blip downward, within hours rates surged back up—past the point that had been deemed critical.

That led to this tarmac exchange between Trump and a reporter. I’ll quote from Sean Foo today, but I’ll link the actual video clip of Trump:

Foo: And if you think things cannot get any more extreme, they absolutely can. Trump just threatened military intervention to defend the bond market. I did not expect to be saying those words, but here we are right now.

Reporter: Did you direct Secretary Bessent to intervene in the bond market? Was that your idea?

Trump: Not at all. No, he’s a very capable man. He wanted to do it. He did that. Yeah.

Reporter: The yields have come back up since then. Have you talked to him about another type of intervention? Is that something he will be doing?

Trump: We have many types of intervention. That’s one. The ultimate intervention is our military. And, uh, if we have to use that, we will. Yeah.

The biggest holders of Treasuries happen to be Japan and the UK, so if those two countries try to sell Treasuries it sounds like Trump will bomb them back into buying—or at least into not selling. That could prove tricky, given that—in the case of Japan—the US no longer has a carrier in the Pacific and—in the case of the UK—any carrier operating from the East Coast is probably in the Caribbean. Will Trump have to resort to ICBMs?

Now ask yourself, as Foo does in that linked video: In these circumstances, given Trump’s threats, what sane central banker will actually buy Treasuries going forward? And the craziness continues to abound. Did you hear the one where Bessent—literally—told China to “get with the program” and sanction Iran at Bessent’s directions? Not a joke. He really said that, literally: Yo, Xi, “get with the program.” Bessent cited China’s need for Persian Gulf oil, which the US is blockading—a clear threat. That’s not gonna happen, and the way things are going things could end up going nuclear. Figuratively but, you know what? Maybe literally. Bessent says he’ll be telling “allies” (= vassals), and presumably non-allies like Russia and China—per his “get with the program statement:

You are either with us or against us.”

That’s existential. But Canada heard those words, too, and what did they do? They broke off trade talks and vowed to retaliate “dollar for dollar” against any Trump tariffs:

The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter

10h

BREAKING: Trade talks between the US and Canada have collapsed and the US has imposed new 50% tariffs on billions of dollars of Canadian goods.

Details include:

1. Canada’s Prime Minister Carney vows to retaliate with “dollar for dollar” tariffs on the US

2. The tariffs will cover hundreds of items the US buys from Canada, such as plywood, liquor, electrical equipment and hockey gear, totaling ~$20 billion

3. US Trade Representative Greer said Canadian negotiators had “upset the balance” worked out over days of negotiations

4. The two sides had been discussing a deal that included lowering tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 25% and autos to 15%

The US-Canada trade war appears to be back.

And meanwhile Trump is back to trying to jawbone the price of oil. Per Trump’s official Mossad spokesman:

Barak Ravid @BarakRavid

Around 40 tankers transited in and out of the Strait of Hormuz through the southern deep channel on Friday night. Around 16 million barrels of oil moved out of the strait through the southern channel on Friday night, three U.S. officials told me

But …

The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter

47m

This is false.

Axios claims 40 oil tankers crossed the Strait of Hormuz through the southern Omani corridor last on Friday night, carrying around 16 million barrels of oil out of the Strait.

However, Kpler vessel-tracking data, which uses satellite imagery rather than just AIS status, shows completely zero west-to-east tanker crossings on Friday and zero barrels of oil exiting through the Strait.

Barak Ravid’s Axios once again not only exaggerates, but makes the number up.

Now, you will have noticed the prominent role that Bessent plays in all these developments—even, according to Trump, making extreme financial decisions on his own call. Bessent, as is well known, is basically a former Soros consigliere. An international financial gangster. While he was still working directly for Soros, Bessent was a key player in the attack on the British pound and, later, in the Asian Financial Crisis of the 90s. As such he has a long history with the Chinese—who thwarted Bessents attack on the Hong Kong dollar, and have neither forgotten nor forgiven. Which is one more reason, if any were needed, that China will not bend the knee to Bessent.

Now, yesterday in comments to our post How Much Is Being Hidden From Us? Bessent’s name came up repeatedly. In that post (which I’ll reproduce below) I cited accounts by Tucker Carlson and Robert Barnes to support my belief that Trump is fronting for powerful Anglo-Zionist interests that control the political establishment. Reading those references to Bessent in the comments, I realized that Bessent’s appointment as Treasury Secretary was a dead giveaway as to what to expect from Trump 2.0—war on the world. Hegseth—totally unqualified—at the Pentagon and Bessent at Treasury. Kinetic and economic war on the world was presaged in those two appointments, and that’s exactly what we got. And it continues—Trump isn’t backing away. Not until he’s given permission. And he’s clearly being protected by his ultimate controllers, because he does what he’s told to do.

So, having duly noted those comments, I gathered some very recent commentary regarding Bessent that, in the context of my post, clearly signal that Bessent’s appointment was a dead giveaway that Trump was working for other interests that those of Americans and that Bessent, the gangster, would be a key player in that Anglo-Zionist agenda. Jeffrey Sachs’ comments are particularly telling in this regard, although IMO Sachs is probably mistaken in suggesting that Trump tells Bessent what to do:

Einar Tangen: Japan’s Economic Crisis & Why the U.S. Is Next

Bessent was the architect, along with George Soros, of the Asian financial crisis. For those who are wondering about that, that was a crisis that was seen and precipitated by Soros and Bessent to make money. They saw a lot of hot money flows going into Southeast Asia and they deliberately figured out a way to collapse it and then make a tremendous amount of money, you know, just billions and billions of dollars back then, when that was a lot of money.

INTEL Roundtable w/ Larry Johnson & Scott Ritter : Weekly Wrap - 21 AUGUST

Ritter: Scott Bessent is behind the the targeting of Russia’s refinery capacity because he believes it’s going to bring Russia down economically.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : The political collapse of AIPAC - American Voters Reject Israel Lobby

Judge: Does Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent know what he’s doing? Is he a well respected economist in your economic community?

Sachs: I’ve never seen anything like this Treasury Secretary during my career. He has the least interest in the US economy of any Treasury Secretary, I think, in our modern history. He’s basically there as an enforcer of attacks on other countries. You know, he was put in because he was an associate [of Soros and] was part of the attack on the British pound. He speaks like a a gangster, like a thug. ‘We’re going to destroy your economy. We’re going to bring down your currency.’ He calls that economic statecraft. But his knowledge, awareness, and concern about the US economy itself is basically zero.

I can’t recall one intelligent statement that he has made about the US economy or the budget. [The US economy is] something outside of his domain. He is there as an enforcer of US sanctions regimes against other countries. He’s there to attack other currencies, to attack the economy of Iran, to attack the economy of Cuba, to attack the economy of all these countries that Trump threatens every day. Not much comes of any of this anymore. People shrug off when Trump says, “We’re going to destroy your economy if you don’t listen to us,” as he said just today about countries that don’t follow the US line on Iran. It’s basically shrugged off. But these statements are so shrill, they’re unbelievable coming from anybody of any responsibility in any political system, much less the president of the United States. But this is what Bessent’s role seems to be. I’m sure I have missed statements but I cannot recall one intelligent comment--even one comment--about the US economy, about the budget, about the deficit, about the debt, about its trajectory, about US economic development strategy. Nothing. He’s just not a Treasury secretary in the normal sense.

With that background, here’s the gist of the post yesterday (linked above):

I’m as guilty as anyone of calling the war on Iran “Trump’s war”, although I also pepper my posts with references to the Anglo-Zionist war or the Jewish Nationalist war. In fact, I’ve long been puzzled regarding how this war was launched. I’ll try to briefly sketch out the outlines of a narrative.

The most common explanation for how the war began is the one advanced by the two NYT reporters in their book Regime Change. Basically, their narrative is that Netanyahu importuned Trump to start a huge war on Iran, the idea being that any little shove or decapitation move would do the trick over a weekend—or maybe after a few weeks. Thereupon Trump called in his closest advisers to see what they made of this idea. Those advisers, who were totally taken by surprise, all—with the possible exception of Hegseth—told Trump that Netanyahu’s plan was bonkers. “Farcical”, “bullshit,” and “oversold” were some of ways in which they expressed their analytical take on the plan. Trump’s response was, ‘Well, it sounds good to me!’ And off we went to war. Twice, in fact. Without a by your leave directed to Congress—pretty much the first time ever. And this was a very major war, launched at a time of American confrontation with China and proxy war with Russia.

I simply find this narrative difficult to impossible to believe. First of all, consider Trump’s political position. Yes, his electoral college victory was impressive, but it remains that he still fell short of 50% of the popular vote. The GOP majority in the House was razor thin. Trump had run as the peace candidate, knowing that Biden’s wars—Russia and Gaza—were deeply unpopular. Yet Trump just went off, half-cocked, as it were, and Congress didn’t say ‘boo’.

How are we to explain that overall lack of pushback from Congress? No complaints about the supposed total lack of consultation from the political body that funds wars and which has claimed a right to be consulted. That only came much later. Again, I find it difficult to impossible to believe that the Congressional leadership wasn’t read in on the coming war.

The accounts of credible witnesses are unsettling, to say the least. Tucker Carlson was a political supporter and informal adviser to Trump. He had actively campaigned for and with Trump and participated informally in the transition. His clear recollection, derived from transition talk, is that he was shocked to learn that war on Iran appeared to have been decided as early as August, 2024. In the following months, including after the inauguration, Tucker met personally, face to face, with Trump several times, precisely with the idea of talking Trump out of the war. He specifically warned Trump that a war on Iran would consume the entire Trump 2.0 term, and he recalls that Trump fully understood all the reasons for not launching such a war. But he did.

My point here is not to discount Trump’s character and judgment defects, his narcissistic obsessions with ruling the world. My point is simply that if Tucker was aware of the coming war for months, how credible is it to suppose that Congressional leaders were unaware? And yet the American people were largely kept in the dark about this fact, that the peace president was about to rip the peace mask off and morph into a war president—in direct contradiction of his campaign pledges.

I recently listened to Robert Barnes on this topic. Barnes, of course, is a former Trump lawyer and political collaborator who remains active in Republic circles. According to Barnes, Trump was flat out blackmailed by Lindsey! when Trump appeared to be trying to wriggle out of war. Barnes states as fact that Lindsey! presented with a stark (to Trump) alternative: No war on Iran? Then say goodbye to what Trump hoped would be his signature achievement: No Big Beautiful Bill. Again, according to Barnes. Trump chose war—knowing, according to Tucker, all the reasons why the war would prove to be a disaster for Trump’s presidency. And Congress dodged, if not all, then most accountability. That may come back to bite in the midterms, but that was the bargain that the Congressional leadership made. Trump makes war without Congressional participation, Congress passes the BBB, and they all cross their fingers. The rest is history.

To me, the Tucker - Barnes accounts are far more credible than the MSM version propagated by the NYT reporters. Yes, everything recounted in the Regime Change book may well be true, but it is far more credible to view it as a very limited peek at how the decision for war was made. It leaves out so much, and experienced political reporters for the NYT, with excellent sources, had to know that they were presenting a very partial account.

Now, if we are to accept the Tucker - Barnes accounts, then we have to also accept that political influence of massive proportions was wielded to bring the war about. Remember, this political influence had to push America into a huge war on Iran at the same time that America was waging a huge proxy war on Russia and an economic war—accompanied by regional saber rattling—with China. The only political influence force crazy enough and wealthy enough to force this insane project down the throats of our feckless political establish—Executive and Legislative—is essentially the Jewish Nationalists. We’re talking about bribery on a world historical level.

This is largely hidden from Americans by the MSM, but Americans are largely unfooled at this point. This and all the above should be the major issue of the midterm elections.