Episode V: The Persian Empire Strikes Back

[TylerBeer]

No troops on the ground?

I expect Iran didn't just roll over and show its belly like President Bone Spurs expected.

The Pentagon orders troops from the 82nd Airborne Division to deploy to the Middle East

Excerpt:

The only bombing he has experience with is his many failed businesses - this will continue to be a disaster

[Incogneeto]

The only bombing he has experience with is his many failed businesses - this will continue to be a disaster

Newsome will fix it.   

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gavin-newsom-floats-idea-of-mandatory-national-service/ar-AA1ZuYvU?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=69c658e712fd491abdde4ec26df9758f&ei=20

[CNCAppsJames]

California Men's Service Challenge, which set a goal of getting 10,000 men to volunteer as mentors, coaches and tutors.

More like he probably promised 10,000 of his pedo donors grooming opportunities is more like it.

 

[neurosis]

Saw this posted on a libertarian facebook feed. 

[Bucky Cornstarch]

More like he probably promised 10,000 of his pedo donors grooming opportunities is more like it.

Good one, Nutboy!   

[gcode]

No plan?

On November 29, 1971, the world barely noticed when Iranian forces seized three specks of land at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz: Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb. For the UAE and many in the Gulf, this was never a technical border quarrel. It was an act of occupation and a permanent scar.

Today, a comfortable consensus has formed in foreign-policy salons and on Wall Street that the Trump administration has no strategic vision for the Strait of Hormuz, and that Iran is "winning" the confrontation in the Gulf by default. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is hard to believe how casually many of these critics ignore history, including the way control of financing, insurance, and maritime chokepoints has repeatedly reshaped great-power influence.

Half a century after the shah's grab, the question surrounding these islands is no longer simply "who owns them," but "who secures the most critical chokepoint in the global oil trade." With President Trump moving to provide American-backed insurance for ships transiting the Gulf, Washington is displacing the remnants of British dominance in maritime insurance and risk.

Whoever insures the traffic does not just collect premiums; they hold a de facto veto over it and gain visibility into every meaningful cargo, what moves, in what volume, from where and to where.

This emerging architecture gives the United States something London once enjoyed: an indirect presence in every Gulf port that depends on uninterrupted access to global insurance and reinsurance.

The logical next step is geographic as well as financial. Returning Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb to the United Arab Emirates would not only correct a historical wrong against Arab inhabitants whose ties to these islands long predate the shah's gunboat diplomacy. It would also provide the legal and political foundation for a formal U.S.–UAE security arrangement on the islands themselves.

Critics will bristle at the idea of a sustained American military presence on these rocks. But the alternative is not some neutral, demilitarized utopia. The alternative is that the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large share of the world's seaborne oil flows, remains vulnerable to coercion, sabotage, and blockade.

A long-term U.S. presence, at Emirati invitation, would anchor a security order built around free navigation, reliable energy flows, and clear red lines against maritime blackmail.

This is not just about three islands. It is about restoring the principle that territory cannot be seized by surprise and held indefinitely by force, and about extending a coherent maritime strategy from Hormuz to the Bab el-Mandeb.

If the United States is serious about securing the arteries of global trade for decades to come, then correcting the injustice of 1971 and placing these islands under Emirati sovereignty, with an American flag flying alongside the UAE's in a carefully structured basing agreement, is not an overreach.

IMHO, It is the minimum credible foundation for a stable Gulf and the clearest rebuttal yet to those who insist that America has no plan.

[Smit]

Good one, Nutboy!   

Repugs love to hate pedo's unless they're Repug pedos.

Anybody else notice that?

[Bucky Cornstarch]

Repugs love to hate pedo's unless they're Repug pedos.

Anybody else notice that?

Repugs also can't let any conversation pass without mentioning "groomers," even if they have zero understanding of the subject, or who the actual "groomers" are.

[Incogneeto]

Repugs also can't let any conversation pass without mentioning "groomers," even if they have zero understanding of the subject, or who the actual "groomers" are.

https://x.com/i/status/2037262493190676727

[gcode]

Repugs love to hate pedo's unless they're Repug pedos.

Anybody else notice that?

you mean like Caesar Chavez?

a known child rapist and hero of the Left..... until it came out that he was
rabid anti illegal immigration.

Now he's being whitewashed out of existance 

[Bucky Cornstarch]

you mean like Caesar Chavez?

a known child rapist and hero of the Left..... until it came out that he was
rabid anti illegal immigration.

Now he's being whitewashed out of existance 

You know what that's called, gcode?

Accountability.

Unlike the Trumptards, most on the left are willing to withdraw their support if they find out a person is undeserving. Trumptards, on the other hand, deflect, defend, and deny their way into blind, idiotic devotion.

[gcode]

Accountability.

that's a hoot
they turned a blind eye to his child raping for decades
the whitewash came out when his opposition to illegal immigration became widely known

[gcode]

no plan

3 weeks ago I argued the US goal in Iran is to seize the global oil spigot. Venezuela in January -> Iran in February.

Neutralize every supply channel outside the dollar system within 90 days. Achieve a compliant successor government and complete energy dominance.

The oil thesis was the obvious layer. However, when you zoom out & view the last four years as a single sequence rather than isolated geopolitical events, the architecture of the grander US plan becomes visible.

1st was Europe, which laid the groundwork.

The Ukraine conflict provided the justification for sanctions that collapsed Russian pipeline gas from 150 billion cubic meters to 40.

Then Nordstream was destroyed, which rewired the entire European energy system permanently. The US went from supplying 28% of Europe's LNG in 2021 to 58% by 2025, exporting a record 111 million MTs, the 1st country in history to break 100 MT.

Europe was transformed from a customer with options into a captive market now purchasing its survival in USD.

2nd was Syria.

The fall of Assad severed the critical node connecting China's Belt & Road Initiative to the Mediterranean.

The trilateral railway linking Iran, Iraq & Syria, designed to bypass Western maritime chokepoints, was completely destroyed.

This isolated Iran geographically & cleared the path for what came next.

3rd was Venezuela.

In January the US effectively took control of the world's largest heavy crude reserves. The US Gulf Coast has the most advanced refining complex on earth, specifically built for heavy sour crude. Phillips 66, Valero & the rest are now positioned to process hundreds of thousands of barrels of Venezuelan crude daily.

The US captured a massive strategic reserve & solidified its position as the dominant exporter of refined petroleum products, an industry worth $110 billion in 2025 alone.

Venezuela & Iran were the two major oil supply channels that existed outside the dollar system. Both produce heavy crude sold primarily to China & evaded US financial supervision. Both now being neutralized within 90 days, which leads us to..

4th is Iran & the Middle East energy shock.

Israel struck Iran's South Pars gas field, the world's largest natural gas reservoir. Iran retaliated against Qatar's Ras Laffan, the single largest LNG facility on earth, responsible for a fifth of global supply. QatarEnergy's own assessment is that 17% of export capacity is gone and recovery will take up to 5 years. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. European gas prices spiked 70%. Asian spot prices doubled.

The only remaining scaled supplier? The United States.

If Iran falls & a successor government is installed that the US controls or influences (the Delcy model described weeks ago) then roughly 40 to 45 million barrels per day of global production out of 103 million is effectively under US control. OPEC becomes irrelevant because the US coalition is now the marginal producer. Now add the gas dimension & it goes beyond oil.

This war is solidifying the petrodollar system as it evolves into a hybrid petro/LNG-dollar. The old system was built on Saudi crude priced in USD. The new system is built on American crude plus American gas from the Gulf Coast, with no alternative supplier of comparable scale. The dependency is deeper because LNG infrastructure requires long term contracts & regasification terminals that lock buyers into supply relationships for decades. Europe & the Pacific allies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.) cannot pivot away as there is nowhere left to pivot to. They're now locked into the US energy system.

The market confirms this. DXY went from 96 to 101. Gold down ~20% from its January all time high. Bitcoin down 20% on the year. Brent above $100. European & Asian institutions are liquidating precious metals and crypto to buy dollars because they need dollars to buy the only remaining scaled energy supply. The world is selling its gold to buy American energy in American currency. The dollar is now being weaponized through energy dependency.

The structural repricing is happening regardless of how the conflict resolves.

But the US grand strategy goes deeper..

Artificial intelligence is a physical industry. It runs on power and chips. Data centers require massive uninterrupted baseload electricity, primarily provided by natural gas. Semiconductor fabrication requires helium & rare earths.

By choking the Strait of Hormuz & crippling Middle Eastern LNG & helium production, the US is systematically degrading China's ability to power its data centers & fabricate semiconductors at scale.

The US is energy self sufficient, especially with newly captured Venezuelan reserves & expanding Gulf Coast capacity running on domestic gas.

On the other hand, China is import dependent & every joule it imports effectively now transits chokepoints the US Navy controls..

Iran was the Belt & Road's overland energy bypass, the corridor that allowed China to mitigate the Malacca Trap. With Iran neutralized that corridor is severed. China faces a world where its compute infrastructure competes for scraps on a depleted global LNG market, while American data centers run at full capacity on domestic energy.

Russia is next in the sequence. A post-war Iran reopening under US influence competes directly with Russia for the same refineries in China & India at lower cost. Iran's production costs are lower. Russia loses its last structural advantage in heavy crude & its economic lifeline. Additionally, under the Iran war cover, Ukraine has been opportunistically destroying Russian energy infrastructure & all signs point towards Russia being at the end of the line. The message from Washington becomes very simple: we dismantled two regimes in three months, your economy is about to get crushed, sign the Ukraine deal.

Then Trump sits down with Xi holding every card. Complete energy dominance. The hybrid petro/LNG-dollar fortified, Iran cleared, Russia cornered, & China facing the Malacca Trap fully closed with no remaining energy bypass.

Israel & the GCC are absorbing the kinetic cost of a conflict whose primary beneficiary, counter to the mainstream narrative, is actually America (First). Qatar offline for 5 years reprices the entire global gas market in favor of US exporters for the remainder of the decade. The Gulf states face years of rebuilding. Europe faces its 2nd energy crisis in four years.

Sure, the average American might face temporary moderate inflation & higher gas prices. But if you are the architect of the US empire & you view the rise of China & Chinese ASI as an existential winner takes all scenario, the collateral damage is acceptable cost.

Whoever controls the energy corridors controls the monetary system. Whoever controls the monetary system & the energy supply simultaneously controls the compute infrastructure that determines which civilization builds ASI first.

The US is seizing all 3.

[gcode]

F'kin rotate. A 'tard, calling 'tard's 'tard's 'tard's....

it's cool.. guys like Bucky and Smit got nothing.... just grade school insults .... kind of sad really

[Incogneeto]

it's cool.. guys like Bucky and Smit got nothing.... just grade school insults .... kind of sad really

They're too busy swappin' Flags.

Palestine...wait.

Ukraine...wait.

Venezuela...wait.

Cuba...wait.

Iran...